Dark fibre is the term given to optical fibre lines and infrastructures that have already been put in place, but are not yet in use. During the Internet boom in the late ’90s, there was a rush in telecommunication firms laying down lines of fibre optic cable in anticipation for an explosion in its usage, and now thousands of miles of unused, or ‘unlit, fibre exists just waiting to be sold off to users. This is called ‘dark fibre’, owners of fibre lines (such as BT in the UK) lease the lines to firms wanting to use it.
Scalability
If your business is growing quickly, using dark fibre could be a wise choice for point to point connections. If you ever need to upgrade your bandwith, hardware changes at interfaces can be done by you as the lines are not being leased from a provider.
Low-latency
By using your own specially-selected transmission equipment, latency can be reduced. Necessity for fast communications between financial centres have rocketed the demand for dark fibre, as firms want to put this task in their own control rather than relying on other providers.
It’s flexible
Dark fibre can be lit and unlit as many times as need be, meaning you can switch off equipment when not in use.
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Become your own bandwidth provider
If you changed your mind about business needs or direction, you are in charge of the fibre and there’s no waiting around to be had for a supplier to negotiate new contracts or services.
Equipment-free
Dark fibre is useful in situations where the fibre needs to be directly connected to network routers without needing extra equipment. This is particularly useful on campuses or data centres next to eachother.
Security
Using dark fibre networks can increase the level of protection for your firm as they are private and as physically secure as you can make them, as opposed to relying on a provider to have their security levels in check.
