Cable-Laying Boom Will Boost Internet Capacity

Barence writes "Dozens of new undersea internet cables are set to be laid over the next couple of years, providing a huge boost to worldwide capacity. The huge boom in internet video has led to doomsday scenarios of the internet running out of capacity. Although experts believe that there is abundant amounts of 'dark fibre' lying unused in oceans across the world, major telcos are pushing ahead with projects that will see at least 25 new cables laid by 2010, at a cost of $6.4bn."

Comments

Re:Dark Fiber

[RulerOf]

So what they are talking about is lots of fiber optic line that is not being used for one reason or another

The majority of dark fiber is owned by the Tier 1 ISP's, specifically, Level3. The fiber was laid by small independants during the .com bubble, and as those companies folded, telecoms bought it up for pennies on the dollar.

They bought the fiber explicitly for the purpose of preventing competition from springing up, and, god forbid, offering broadband at a reasonable price. Now, they keep it dark so they can claim that their network capacity is near its limit and justify the incredibly draconian policy they have toward network growth.