Dark Fiber, Light For Tomorrow

During the later part of the 1990s, a growing industry worldwide was fiber optics. Fiber optics allows information to be transmitted through light pulses rather than copper wire and electrical signals. As the industry grew, many fibers were laid that have never been used. These fibers are called dark fiber.

Dark fiber exists because it was found that it cost almost the same price to install large fiber cables as it did to install smaller cables. Due to the potential for future savings, telecommunications companies installed many dark fibers in each cable that was used. Many of these fibers are not being used even now.

Power companies also discovered that they could place fiber cables as power lines were being installed. Power companies saw the potential for eventual sales to the telecommunications industry.

The overbuilding of the fiber optics industry has left many dark fibers in existence. These fibers have a very long lifetime, and are still usable today. They offer a vast potential for many uses today.

During the 1900s, telephone companies never sold their dark fiber. They felt that the potential for the dark fiber would be their ability to continue to grow. When dark fiber was first sold, the price was 1200 dollars per mile. The excess of available dark fiber has driven the cost down today and dark fiber can be bought for as little as 200 dollars per mile.

The drop of the price of dark fiber has lead to speculation of ways it can be used.

It has been suggested that universities could be linked through dark fiber. This would allow libraries as well as classes to be interlinked. This could be an answer to the many budget shortfalls that universities are experiencing. Distance learning centers could also be added to the network allowing universities to use already existing buildings and cutting the expense of capitol improvements.

Other suggestions are to allow physicist to be connected to national laboratories. They could perform experiments using equipment to which they might not otherwise have access.

With the current administration’s interest in centralized medical records the dark fiber could be used to connect doctors and clinics to the centralized bank over a network that was more secure than the internet.

Because of the availability of security on dark fiber, banks have also expressed interest in using dark fiber. Valuable customer information would be less available to hackers.

The possibilities are endless.