Google's Dark Fibre Plans?

sebFlyte writes "According to news.com "Google is looking for Strategic Negotiator candidates with experience in...(i)dentification, selection, and negotiation of dark fiber contracts both in metropolitan areas and over long distances as part of development of a global backbone network." Is the search giant planning to build a global fibre-optic network?" Or perhaps simply use unused fibre that they can get for cheaper then from the datacenter providers; although at least from my talks with the datacenter folks, Google's not paying much per Mbps as it is.

Comments

You mean "than"

[vilms]

Not "then".

Dark Fibre (Fiber) defined.

[sanityspeech]

The free encyclopedia definition:

"Dark fibre or unlit fibre (or fiber) is the name given to fibre optic cables which have yet to be used. They are hence not yet connected to any device, and are only there for future usage."

Re:Dark Fibre (Fiber) defined.

[rwyoder]

Dark fibre or unlit fibre (or fiber) is the name given to fibre optic cables which have yet to be used. They are hence not yet connected to any device, and are only there for future usage.

There is a second meaning: It is fiber which is not lit by the provider. For example if you have two locations and lease a dark fiber between the two, you are essentially getting two ends of a single fiber with no networking equipment in the loop. You will then connect your own equipment at each end and light it your self.

Re:Dark Fibre (Fiber) defined.

[seanadams.com]

There's more to it than that... my understanding is that when you lease "dark fiber" it means that when you get it, the fiber is _still_ dark from end-to-end, i.e. there is no mux/demux equipment or any telco "value add" services associated with it. It's sort of like the "alarm circuit" that telecoms used to sell, which was a "dry copper" pair from one location to another with no telecom switch or repeaters on the line. It's not just "unused" fiber - it's fiber that you get to signal on however you want (within some power limits I'm sure).

This means you provide the equipment, potentially giving you vastly more bandwidth than the telecom could sell you on that fiber. It also means you can upgrade your equipment later for faster speeds. It also means less points of failure on the line because its just optics all the way through.

Dark fiber usually isn't sold by the telecoms. Usually you'll have to get it from companys such as the railway and sewer owners - the guys who oversee the cables themselves, not the higher level services.

The disadvantage of dark fiber compared to a telcom OCx circuit are 1) you can't get channelized services eg split this DS3 into a few DS1 to this locations, and few DS1s to that location, a couple DS1s for ISDN PRI, etc etc. 2) you have less flexibility in choosing the endpoints - your choices are limited to big data centers where the vendors are willing/able to provide dark dervice 3) you don't get to deal with the really nice helpful people at the phone company

Re:Dark Fibre (Fiber) defined.

[Tony Hoyle]

You can lease dark fiber from a telco... I worked for a company that did it for a short while.

There's probably 100* more dark fiber than lit fiber in the world - when they're putting it down it's dirt cheap to put a few more bundles in. You can get it pretty much anywhere to anywhere (where there's some kind of physical link anyway).

The real cost though is lighting the thing. It costs a fortune to rent the mux equiment, and it's large enough that space considerations at the other end come into play. That's mostly the reason why it's still dark in the first place (that and the telcos have so much excess bandwidth already they don't know what to do with it... it's more cost effective to negotiate a cut rate on a piece of existing fiber).

Re:Dark Fibre (Fiber) defined.

[Firethorn]

When you're buying that kind of fiber, you can buy whatever kind you want.

When 2 pair costs $.20 per foot, without install costs, and 12 pair costs $.30 per foot, and it costs the same $10 a foot to bury the sucker, you might as well guard against future expansion, breakage and whatnot by installing the 12 pair. Standardizing on 12 pair also simplifies inventory work. I've heard that many telco's standardized on 12 pair everywhere except for major, major backbones because the savings from standardized purchasing, inventory, and etc made it cheaper.

*all costs are estimated

They've been connected to the ams-ix for some time

[Erik Hensema]

I have seen traces from the Netherlands to www.google.com go over the amsterdam internet exchange for some time now. According to their member page they have been connected since march 2004. Traceroute:

5 bb2-ge6-0.amsix-telecity.home.nl (213.51.158.153) 28.478 ms 27.683 ms 26.895 ms
6 r2-ge1-2-0.amsix-telecity.home.nl (213.51.158.158) 26.563 ms 35.185 ms 33.987 ms
7 core1.ams.net.google.com (195.69.144.247) 32.044 ms 32.543 ms 30.484 ms
8 64.233.175.246 32.806 ms 32.560 ms 30.529 ms
9 216.239.46.173 30.058 ms 29.058 ms 26.684 ms
10 216.239.49.254 37.532 ms 36.958 ms 39.685 ms
11 216.239.48.50 41.163 ms 41.902 ms 43.109 ms
12 216.239.49.62 35.543 ms 34.004 ms 33.173 ms
13 * * *

The AMS-IX is the largest Internet Exchange / NAP in Europe.

Not surprising...

[Tancred]

They've got several (lots of?) datacenters that have to sync up lots of data. Anyone with enough data to transfer around can save money just buying the strands of fiber or wavelengths on lit fiber instead of paying a provider to light it. It's not surprising that Google has enough of this work to do that they want to hire someone with experience in it.

Dark Fibre (Fiber) is a common product

[StreetFire.net]

FWIW it is very common for larger companies to buy up Dark Fiber from large telco providers. All of the Tier 1 Telcos sell Dark Fiber as a standard product line, and you will find many of the Fortune 100 companies out there own their own. I highly doubt this is Google's atempt to change business plans and enter the depressed Telco sector.