Dark fiber usage info request - know-how pointers and experience sharing

Fri Nov 2 18:31:24 UTC 2012

In the USA the Federal School Lunch program has built out a parallel fiber
network equal to or superior to telco fiber in many urban locations, under
the E-Rate program. TheE-Rate  backbone fiber is leased typically on a
10-20 year IRU basis. Sunesys is a provider of dark fiber, and their web
site interfaces with Google Maps to provide detailed fiber maps where they
have deployed fiber (I do not work for Sunesys, or any other dark fiber
company).

My own experience with dark fiber using off the shelf long reach sfps
(GiGE, CWDM wavelengths with passive mux technology, h, connecting Ethernet
switches from various vendors) is that dark fiber networks are extremely
stable,and  require little maintenance once operational. An experienced
network engineer will have no trouble deploying such a network.

David

On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 10:31 AM, Stefan <netfortius at gmail.com> wrote:

> Looking at dark fiber leasing as an alternative for existing ISP-acquired
> MPLS, MetroE, P2P, etc. services. I would appreciate some pointers (links)
> into specific technologies used with dark fiber, as direct consumer (not
> ISP). I am not looking for the theory behind (C)DWDM, but rather real life
> implementations and experience with folks operating such.
>
> Highly appreciated would also be extra info on what the learning curve
> required for traditional network engineering crew to operate devices
> terminating into such, and maybe even work (installation and operation)
> needed to maintain plants with this infrastructure.
>
> TIA,
> ***Stefan
>