Fortunately, some companies are making good use of dark fiber. In fact, dark fiber is in a unique position that makes it highly desirable for some.

Problem with ISPs
For example, let's take a large business. If this business is online, it will need a stable and reliable service for proper customer service. It may also require the transfer of huge amounts of data from one office to another.

In this situation, a business can go through an Internet Service Provider (ISP), just like you go through it to access the Internet. However, if a business wants to send a large amount of data through an ISP, it can face huge service charges.

Ordinary consumers, like you and me, use the services of an Internet provider because they have provided us with everything we need to connect. Technically, you can create your own ISP , but the infrastructure is expensive to set up and maintain. This is why we pay the ISP a monthly fee to do it for us.

Where dark fiber comes into play
What about business? After all, they have the money and skills to build their own connection and ditch the ISP entirely. Of course, they need unused fiber to do this, and this is where dark fiber comes into play.

A company can rent out some of the dark fiber and then plug their own devices into either end. They can then use their expertise to create a system that connects each office and then the Internet, thereby completely avoiding the use of an ISP.

In the highway example above, it's as if the company decided to use an unused lane and install ramps to and from their offices. They could then use this lane to transport goods and workers at their leisure.

In fact, remember when we said the lane was closed off from the rest of the highway? This means that only company traffic can use the bands; no one else can use them without permission. The company lanes are free of any congestion on the main highway.

Likewise, a dark fiber connection can provide businesses with a fast, high-speed connection that is not overloaded by general traffic or overloaded ISP servers. This makes them very desirable for those who want to be themselves.

How companies lease dark fiber

If you are interested in using dark fiber yourself, you will need to find a dark fiber supplier in the country you live in. Some examples include Fibroptic for the UK and Lumen for the US. However, there are many more companies, some of which you can find on the Dark Fiber Network community .

Typically, these businesses have a dark fiber map that lets you see where the fiber is and lets you pick the closest location for your business. You can then enter your own fiber optic connection arrangements.

Please note that we talked about this from a business point of view, not from an individual point of view. This is because renting your own fiber optic cable is an expensive and complex process that only a business really should undertake.

As stated on Fibroptic:

Dark fiber may be the right decision for your business, but it doesn't feel like buying a managed service. You are investing in a lease of an asset that needs to be maintained, and in the worst case - for example, construction workers are cutting cables - to be repaired. Under these circumstances, troubleshooting will not be easy or quick. You will need the appropriate SLA. Simply put, your dark fiber is a high-tech cable that connects one point to another. It is designed to connect offices to offices, data centers to data centers, or offices to data centers.

For more information about: define fiber