Denying an entire nation the benefits of dark fibre is simply not an option. But there is little that most comms providers can do against monolithic national operators dragging their feet, until now. Here, Commsworld CTO Charlie Boisseau explains how the availability of dark fibre enabled the company to master its own destiny and liberate customers from the constraints of an inadequate infrastructure model.
First question, what does the comms industry want? Answer, it wants massive national dark fibre availability followed by mutually planned routes to market based on staunch partnerships with alternative providers. Commsworld's response to CityFibre's dark fibre proposition has granted that wish. The second question is how to switch a higher number of comms providers onto unlit fibre and further advance a national connectivity revolution.
According to Boisseau, adding volumes of dark fibre to the armoury of the channel is a no brainer. "Throwing an abundance of dark fibre into the industry will make the supply chain richer, even if you're not able to consume it directly," he said. "The industry will attract new providers such as ourselves doing clever things with dark fibre, readily wholesaling it back to the rest of the market. For example, we're planning to launch national Layer2 access to 1Gb/s and 10Gb/s Ethernet using CityFibre under our Fluency network brand name. Alternative network providers are hugely important in this space."
Commsworld uses dark fibre as a means of backhaul between its metro PoPs as well as an innovative access circuit technology for providing connectivity services to customers. "The traditional fibre and Ethernet/leased line carriers struggle to deliver against their SLAs, but owning and managing the service end-to-end puts us in control and allows us to deliver over and above the industry standard," added Boisseau. "Dark fibre also promotes innovation way beyond the scope of traditional metro Ethernet and leased line services which are the core component of most offerings from providers.
"If the sector continues to be shackled by the same old ubiquitous access networks with the same products and services underpinning the country's telecoms industry we will continue to be frustrated by the status quo. With a lack of innovation and an obscenely slow drip-feed approach to the roll out of new products and services, we really can't rely on the usual suspects to revolutionise our national infrastructure. For this reason, companies like CityFibre, with its fresh approach to funding and investing in new build networks, are absolutely critical."
Commsworld already provides flexible bandwidth options to its customers, with the ability to go from 1Gb/s to 10Gb/s in just days instead of weeks or months and without the huge cost. "We are also selling our own brand of wavelength-based optical services for enterprise and service provider customers, all over our own infrastructure, under our own control and with disruptive pricing," added Boisseau.
Adopting a full dark fibre strategy was a natural evolution for Commsworld, and a welcome progression from its former piecemeal use of dark fibre in its backhaul network. "On occasion we found the opportunity to use dark fibre for customer circuits, but the lack of a dark fibre asset to tap into was the main block to being able to deploy more dark fibre-based services," commented Boisseau.
"The likes of BT, Virgin, Vodafone etc don't currently sell dark fibre, so it was only an option in select areas in cities where one of our fibre partners happened to have network. But CityFibre arrived and built hundreds of kilometres into cities where we operate. It has been a game changer. Having an abundance of dark fibre asset to consume, and the ability to influence where it is built is an unprecedented paradigm shift in our space."
Access to dark fibre has greatly advanced Commsworld's capabilities. In the past the company had to rely on managed access tails from providers such as BT even though it had its own national MPLS network. "At that time our products and services looked similar to the rest of the industry but we nevertheless achieved success in selling customers the benefits of our agility and willingness to do things you just can't buy elsewhere," commented Boisseau.
"However, our success was limited by our inability to take that innovation further and differentiate in new ways. But having access to a raw piece of glass between our network and our customers means there is no limit to that innovation. We are no longer seen as a tier 2 operator buying network components from others. Having our own on-net fibre capability with all of the flexibility and scope for innovation it brings puts us on a level playing field with large national operators. The only difference is that our network is the result of a partnership with CityFibre, and we didn't go bankrupt building it."
It is a boon to Commsworld that it has in-house optical expertise and the knowhow to install, troubleshoot and maintain networks consuming dark fibre. "If you're planning to take dark fibre as a component of your offering, I would recommend putting your engineers through a general fibre awareness course and invest in some basic tools," advised Boisseau. "No engineer should be without an optical light source and meter and a good set of fibre cleaners."•