Fiber Optic Private Lines

Companies that need 50 Mbps or more of private line bandwidth find that their twisted pair copper options have pretty much topped out. Downtown in some major metro areas you may be able to get high bandwidth point to point wireless service. Most of the time, though, you’ll be looking at fiber optic options for private line services that have the bandwidth you require.

The traditional fiber optic service for metro and long haul networks is SONET / SDH. The term Synchronous Optical NETwork / Synchronous Digital Hierarchy is aptly applied. The heat of this technology is a highly synchronized Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) protocol that offers very low latency with a range of bandwidth options that can take you to 40 Gbps or beyond. This standard has been proliferated around the world by major telecom companies. You can often get SONET services at the bandwidth of your choice from door to door to all points on the globe.

I say often, because the biggest stumbling block with fiber optic transport is the last mile connection. Estimates are that no more than a third of US business locations are “lit” for fiber. This generally means that either you or the carrier of your choice will need to build out a last mile fiber link to get your building “on-net.”

It’s a prospect that isn’t as daunting as it used to be. Fiber bandwidth providers are aggressively building out their service footprints and are actively looking for attractive locations that will use their service. If you are willing to commit to significant bandwidth usage or can get together with other tenants for a combined offer, you might get a great deal on establishing fiber optic service.

You may find that you have several types of service to choose from. SONET is the legacy service and is at the core of many backbone networks. IP networks are newer and more closely match the protocol that your LAN is running. Ethernet Private Line (EPL) service offers highly scalable bandwidth from a low of 10 to 50 Mbps right on up to Gigabit Ethernet and 10 GigE. These bandwidth options are available in Metro Ethernet Networks and long haul Ethernet transport.

SONET bandwidth services start off with OC-3 running at 155 Mbps. The next level generally available is OC-12 at 622 Mbps. Then you can move up to OC-24 at 1.24 Gbps, OC-48 at 2.4 Gbps, OC-192 at 10 Gbps and OC-768 at 40 Gbps.

SONET is often provisioned in a protected ring topology. There are two fiber strands, each carrying the same traffic. If one strand fails for any reason, the other picks up the full load within 50 mSec. This makes for very high reliability data connections.

If you want even higher performance fiber optic private lines or wish to have more control over your services, you can order wavelength services. Each wavelength is like having a separate line all to yourself. They are typically offered at 2.5 Gbps and 10 Gbps bandwidth level.

Still not enough? How about your own fiber optic cable from point to point? Sounds nice, but who can afford that? You can by leasing dark fiber that is already in the ground. When companies bury fiber, they bury a lot of fiber at the same time. It’s not unusual to have over 100 fiber strands in one cable. You can lease one or more of those strands and connect them to your own termination equipment. If you light the fiber, you have the ultimate in security and can run any protocol you wish.

Are you in need of higher bandwidth to support your business needs? Have a look at fiber optic private line options to see what services make the most sense for what you are doing.




Note: Photo of fiber optic transmission equipment courtesty of WikiMedia Commons.

10 Gigabit Bandwidth Options

Metropolitan and wide area network speeds are on the rise. Undersea cables are being upgraded from 10 to 40 and soon 100 Gbps bandwidths, with terrestrial fiber runs moving to 100 Gbps now. Likewise, major corporations, healthcare providers and video content producers are starting to feel the squeeze of too small network connections. Fortunately, there are more options and better pricing available today than ever before.

There are several practical solutions to increasing your MAN or WAN bandwidth above the Gigabit per second level and up to 10 Gbps. Let’s see what we can do with SONET, Ethernet, Wavelength and Dark Fiber.

SONET is the telecom fiber optic standard invented by Bell Labs for the telephone industry. It was originally deployed to transport thousands upon thousands of simultaneous telephone calls between switching centers. SONET has evolved to carry data as well as digitized phone calls. As it turns out, voice traffic is in the minority now.

SONET stands for Synchronous Optical NETwork. That describes how it is designed. This is a tightly synchronized time division multiplexed system intended for switched circuit implementation. There are specific service levels associated with SONET levels. These are designed as OC or Optical Carrier levels. The lowest generally available is OC-3 at 155 Mbps, followed by OC-12 at 622 Mbps.

The next level OC-24 takes you to the Gigabit level at 1.24 Gbps. OC-24 isn’t as commonly deployed as the next level, OC-48 at 2.5 Gbps. OC-48 is becoming the new high bandwidth standard for organizations that need high speed private lines or dedicated Internet connections. OC-192 is the 10 Gigabit service level, running at a line rate of 9.95 Gbps. From there you jump up to OC-768 at 40 Gbps. You’ll recognize that as a backbone network bandwidth for fiber optic carriers. OC-768 isn’t generally required at the corporate level just yet.

Notice that there are fairly wide gaps in the service levels between SONET OC levels. If you need 2 Gbps, OC-48 service at 2.5 Gbps makes sense. However, if you need 3 Gbps, you have to go all the way up to OC-192 at 10 Gbps. In some cases, you can find fractional OC-48 service at a better price. This is simply OC-48 that is throttled to provide only the 3 Gbps or other bandwidth you need. There might not be much cost savings, since OC-48 is a standard service level and fractional SONET services are a special order, if available.

Carrier Ethernet is a far more scalable service than SONET. It does have industry standard service levels, such as 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, 1 Gbps Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gbps 10 GigE. Most service providers will allow you to scale your service in small increments up to the maximum capacity of the installed port. With a 10 GigE Port, you can easily get 3 Gbps, 9 Gbps or bandwidths in-between. Since Ethernet networks were designed with this scalability in mind from the beginning, service level changes are fairly automated and can be made in a matter of days, if not hours, with no equipment changes needed.

Wavelength services are offered for high performance latency sensitive applications. Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) splits the fiber optic laser beam into dozens of individual wavelengths or colors that act as independent private lines. There is no interconnection between wavelengths. A wavelength is dedicated to your needs and carries your traffic exclusively. Typical speeds available are 1 GigE, 2.5 Gbps, 10 Gbps, 10 GigE and 40 Gbps. Note that both SONET and Ethernet protocols are available over individual wavelengths.

Dark Fiber gives you the ultimate in flexibility. It is simply a glass strand between two of your locations. You can run any protocol you like at any speed you want over as many wavelengths as you care to deploy. Bandwidth is nearly unlimited, but the catch is that you have to buy, install and maintain the transmission equipment that feeds the fiber.

Have your requirements reached the point where 10 Gigabit bandwidth services are a reasonable consideration. The good news is that there are multiple carriers eager to bid for your business between 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps or beyond. Get competitive quotes for Gigabit and 10 Gigabit level fiber optic services now. You may be surprised how affordable these high bandwidth services have become.