There are 378 fiber optic cables under the sea connecting the entire world. These submarine cables are how the entire world shares data. You may be asking what dark fiber is. Dark fiber is fiber optic cables that have already been laid in the ground but aren’t being used. They are called dark fiber cables because they are “unlit” and have no light passing through it.
These unused fiber optics cables are there because when these cables are installed into the ground, people plan and install more than needed. This is because the installation into the ground is the most expensive part of the project. The installation accounts for about 90% of the cost, and the other 10% is the cost of the cable. So, they burry as much fiber optic cables as possible.
Why Should Organizations Lease Dark Fiber Cables?
Dark fiber cables can be useful and beneficial to data centers for many reasons. The first being money. Because these fiber optic cables have already been installed the data centers who decide to lease it will save a significant amount of money. They don’t need to worry about paying for the installation to bury it into the ground.
A company using a commercial internet service will usually get bounced around to many different points before reaching its end location. Using dark fiber cables allows companies to go straight to their destination. This improves the overall speed and performance of the connection.
It delivers the benefit of redundancy. Physical redundancy can be looked can be viewed as even more important than speed, a natural disaster or any type of disaster can result in both primary and secondary backup to be lost. Having your fiber optic cables will give a company even better redundancy.
Buying dark fiber cable isn’t like buying other telecommunication services. It’s like buying the equipment and doing the rest of the work yourself. It must be monitored and serviced when needed. Running dark fiber cables needs plenty of attention and requires expertise. The team managing these cables will need to learn how to remotely monitor and maintain the system. This will take time and money.
These dark fibers, if in the proper location, can connect major data center hubs. It also shows where investors are looking to invest. The entire range of digital infrastructure assets will all be a focus for investors. This includes data centers, wireless antennas and fiber, and telecom towers.
Dark fiber can give data centers an advantage in the future. Dark fiber has a fixed cost. Internet service providers may not be able to offer the same fixed rate.
Dark fiber cables are a hidden commodity that can be utilized by telecommunication companies. Many data centers and colocation companies have long-used dark fiber connections to keep customer costs low. (source: colocationamerica.com)