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Definition Of Dark Fiber – Get Unlimited Bandwidth With Your Own Backbone

Definition of dark fiber – get unlimited bandwidth with your own backbone

What is dark fiber

Dark fiber refers to unused optical fiber infrastructure. It is a mixture of remaining switches, repeaters, and cabling of fiber optic cables. Today, the name of it has evolved and it now includes the practice of leasing the unused fiber optic lines from network operators and providers.

A company or an individual can lease the unused dark strands and create their privately operated network rather than just leasing the bandwidth. The leased dark fiber network is separate from the main network and is controlled by the leasing company rather than the network provider.

Unlimited bandwidth

If your company is looking for unlimited bandwidth and wants to control and manage its network without incurring increased monthly costs, then fiber network is the solution. Fiber optics works such that information is conveyed over optical fiber networks through beams of light. There has to be light for data to be transported without light no data is transported hence the name “dark fiber.”

In the mid-1990s during the information revolution, fiber optic companies laid more fiber optic lines to avoid future expansion costs due to exponential data growth. The overestimation of the fiber optic infrastructure meant that optical fiber networks had extra capacity that was not used. Today, these unused dark lines are important because companies and individuals use them to establish their optical connections independent from the operator network.

When you get dark fiber, you light it with your electronics and maintain direct operational control while leveraging on the dense metro. In this case, the phone company neither controls nor connects the leased fiber strands but instead the leasing company provides the components of making it functional.

Setting up dark fiber map

Dark fiber map can be set in different ways including point to point, point to multipoint and fiber rings configurations. When using dark fiber, you should expect high security, super fast speeds, and high performance. Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) has always been key to the development and functioning of the Dark Fiber because it helps multiple data signals to transmit over the same optical strand simultaneously.

Although data signals are transported at the same time, they use different wavelengths in fiber optic. The DWDM feature increases bandwidth that allows more information to be sent through a fiber optic cable. With DWDM, one optical fiber is transformed into several virtual fibers.

Control your network

Leasing a dark fiber puts you in control of your network. It allows your company to have its preferred transmission technology that it can deploy over the point-to-point connection. It has reliable performance, and it allows your business to enjoy unlimited bandwidth at all times, depends on your equipment.

Using a dark fiber, your company can set transmission speed and transmission protocol at will. Being that fiber network is not tunneled or routed through the public Internet, it gives you a secure way to connect your critical sites without any worries.

It is because being the only person using your line. Your company is assured of a high level of security. The dark fiber also utilizes less power but have better signal strength, high capacity due to the DWDM that makes it immune to interference, which is a common feature in traditional networks.

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