Cost of fiber run between neighbouring office buildings

Tue Oct 2 17:03:44 UTC 2012

Where I work for a local telecommunications provider, we will not run any fiber smaller than 24 strand, and these days that is a drop into a building. 

When talking about single mode fiber, the cost per foot difference in 2, 8, or even 24 strand is typically a matter of less than $1 per foot. 
Some of the prices I've seen lately on google indicate about $.4/ft for 2-strand, $.5/ft for 6-strand, and $1.8/ft for 24-strand 

It's all about the cost of getting it run by a contractor (which is typical if you have to get conduit installed, or run along telephone/power poles aerial) , unless you're in a position to do it yourself. 

You'd likely have to pay someone to terminate it into a patch panel for you, but it may be cheaper for them to do all strands at once as opposed to having them come back later. 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Robert E. Seastrom" <rs at seastrom.com> 
To: "Nick Hilliard" <nick at foobar.org> 
Cc: "NANOG" <nanog at nanog.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, October 2, 2012 9:48:33 AM 
Subject: Re: Cost of fiber run between neighbouring office buildings 

Second what Nick said. Also, get quotes for double, quadruple, and 
more of the number of fibers you think you need today. If it makes 
economic sense to leave strands unterminated (coil neatly in the 
splice tray and have someone term later) by all means do it. Extra 
strands in the cable are almost free compared to the labor to pull it 
in. 

-r 

Nick Hilliard <nick at foobar.org> writes: 

> On 02/10/2012 13:35, Hank Disuko wrote: 
>> - 2 x 6-Strand 50/125u multimode, Tight Buffered, Armoured, Laser Ultra-Fox Fiber cables 
>> - Distance of run is approx 520 meters 
> 
> For that length, go with single-mode. 10G-LR will happily run on 10km of 
> SMF, but 10G-SR flakes out at ~300m even on OM3. Laying outdoor MMF plant 
> like this is totally pointless. Using MMF for anything outside your 
> cabinet / small cage is creating a legacy deployment on day 1 which will 
> bite you in future years. 
> 
> To answer the question you asked: if the ducts are already in place and 
> you're just pulling fibre through, you should have a breakdown in terms of 
> # of terminations + the manpower required to handle the pull + cable 
> finishing. I.e. it shouldn't be very much. If you need ducting laid or if 
> your existing ducting is in poor shape, that's a different issue. 
> 
> Nick 