dark fiber
first on google search:
Dark fiber refers to unused fiber-optic cable. Often times companies lay more lines than what’s needed in order to curb costs of having to do it again and again. The dark strands can be leased to individuals or other companies who want to establish optical connections among their own locations.
A dark fibre (or dark fiber) or unlit fibre is an unused optical fibre, available for use in fibre-optic communication.
The term dark fibre was originally used when referring to the potential network capacity of telecommunication infrastructure, but now also refers to the increasingly common practice of leasing fibre optic cables from a network service provider, or, generally, to the fibre installations not owned or controlled by traditional carriers.
A dark fiber network or simply dark network is a privately operated optical fiber network that is run directly by its operator over dark fiber leased or purchased from another supplier, rather than by purchasing bandwidth or leased line capacity. Dark fiber networks may be used for private networking, or as Internet access or Internet infrastructure networking.
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adding page because of this share by Ethan written by Susan:
Susan Crawford (@scrawford) celebrates Huntsville/Google’s collaboration to light up dark fiber: backchannel.com/you-didn-t-not…
You Didn’t Notice It, But Google Fiber Just Began the Golden Age of High Speed Internet Access
in Huntsville, it will lease “dark” fiber that will be built and owned by the electric utility in that city. (Dark fiber is passive, unlit by lasers, so not capable of carrying information until someone comes along and lights it.) The Google lease is nonexclusive — any other ISP can show up and provide services — and will allow Google to provide retail gigabit fiber Internet access services to any home or business that Huntsville decides to serve.
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.. could be revolutionary here in smashing the current dogma that keeps Americans overcharged and under-served.
Why haven’t we adopted this dark-fiber model? Because high-speed Internet access policy here has to date been full of stories of large incumbent companies taking positions that make no sense. They do it because doing otherwise would violate a deeply-held belief that they think is core to their business survival.
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on sweden having this but w/o grit/messiness of individual innovation..
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I’ve made an extensive suggestion here about how to make financing fiber a national policy possibility.
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Fiber is good for the next 40 to 50 years. It’s essential to manage the flood of data from self-driving cars, virtual reality, gaming, telemedicine, and emergency services that we’re going to generate. Its seemingly limitless transmission capacity can be put to work by youngsters imagining new businesses, families wanting to educate their children, and older people who want to live with dignity at home.
and/or .. imagine using it simply for global do-over.. where the flood of data is simply self talk. as the day. at east until we all get to play.. until we all get back to us.
let’s do this first: free art-ists.
be you. 