Dark fiber: Businesses see the light

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[Excerpts from Cnet news article.  It is interesting to see businesses
follow the lead of universities and research networks who have been
advocating the advantages of dark fiber for some time. Ownership of dark
fiber in the metro area makes a lot sense.  It is  more difficult to justify
in the long haul. This is where CANARIE's UCLP can help which allows owners
of dark fiber to extend the benefits of and flexibility of dark fiber to
wavelengths so that they can re-configure the topology, do their own
add/drop, etc without carrier intervention or approval-- BSA]


http://news.com.com/Dark+fiber+Businesses+see+the+light/2100-1037_3-5557910.
html?tag=sas.email

Dark fiber: Businesses see the light

When Ford Motor Co. decided to upgrade its corporate network in Dearborn,
Mich., it sent in the backhoes.

Ford found that it would cost less to lay its own optical fiber lines than
to subscribe to a service from the local phone company.

Bank of America, Bausch ' Lomb and Gannett Co., the publisher of USA Today
and dozens of other newspapers across the country, are some of the big names
that have built out their own fiber

Private fiber optic networks aren't just for giants anymore--midsize firms
in many industries are saving by leasing unused fiber lines and building
their own high-speed optical networks.

Cheap fiber and optical equipment are paving the way for corporate customers
to build their own fiber networks instead of subscribing to a service from a
local carrier. 

"Analysts have long said it's too expensive and requires specially trained
optics engineers to build and run these networks," said Gary Gunnerson, IT
architect at Gannett, which has already built metro fiber networks in three
cities where it has newspapers. "I've found just the opposite to be true.
The fiber and the equipment are so cheap now, and anyone who is familiar
with IP networking gear can handle a short-distance optical network. I could
teach them how in half a day."

Companies that build their own networks are likely to be technology
innovators. Their need to jack up bandwidth is a direct result of ambitious
technology initiatives that include converging voice, data, and video onto
an Internet protocol backbone, expanding storage area networks or
consolidating data centers.

Ford's George Surdu said his company knew it needed a flexible,
high-capacity network as it started to move its network toward IP
convergence.

"We are definitely saving money by doing it ourselves," he said. "But owning
the fiber ourselves also fits in well with our overall telecom strategy. We
needed more bandwidth, but we also wanted to be able to
deliver additional capacity on demand for whatever new technology
initiatives came up in the future."

"We can turn up new services in a matter of hours or days instead of waiting
months for a carrier to do it."
--Bank of America's Larry Schaeffer says flexibility is a key virtue to
owning your own network


"Probably the most beneficial aspect of owning the network ourselves is the
flexibility we have," he said. "We can turn up new services in a matter of
hours or days instead of waiting months for a carrier to do it. All we have
to do to add more capacity is change out the electronics."

The decision to build a network from scratch or lease a service from a
carrier comes down to price. Gunnerson said companies that spend between
$7,000 and $10,000 per month on telecommunication services should consider
building their own fiber networks. He estimates that his company saves at
least 30 percent on its total network costs.

There's little question that cheap prices on dark fiber have encouraged
build-it-yourself networking, but an equally important piece of the puzzle
is the equipment used to light the fiber. Coarse wave division multiplexing
or CWDM, a technology first introduced in the 1980s, works like DWDM. The
difference is that CWDM allows for a smaller number of channels--typically
eight to 16--as compared to DWDM, but at a 40 percent cost reduction. It
also runs at shorter distances. DWDM provides a higher number of
channels--usually 16 to 32--but at a higher cost. It is also able to run
longer distances.

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These news items and comments are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect
those  of the CANARIE board or management.



Bill St. Arnaud
Senior Director Network Projects
CANARIE
[email protected]
+1 613 944-5603 -----------
[email protected]


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