Dark Fibre

[Jonah]

Well hello there,

 

Does anyone by chance have any recent experience regards rough pricing on dark/unlit fibre (~6.5km)?

 

Have approached Schools Broadband, BT, and Virgin but no replies as yet. We’re based in Manchester if that’s relevant.

 

Cheers.

[Chuckster]

In a previous school that I had worked in they were 3 physical sites, simply separated by a single-lane carriageway.

 

As a result, the 3 sites had 3 lots of everything, e.g. 3 x networks (AD), 3 x firewalls, 3 x leased lines etc.

 

When I enquired about leasing dark fibre before covid kicked in, Openreach estimated a cost of £25k per annum to simply link one school to the other. Times that by 3 and you soon find the school would never have the budget for it.

 

Thankfully, however, the 3 sites had a clear line of sight with one another and I went about installing wireless point-to-point.

 

Oh, and I also enquired about laying our own fibre and the estimated cost alone hit approx. £700k!

[SchoolsBroadband]

BT Openreach doesn't have a Dark Fibre service wholesale other than connecting exchanges together. You can take Optical Waves rather than a layer 2 EAD but expect big bucks for that.

 

Some other networks such as Virgin and Cityfibre do offer Dark fibre circuits but only where they're already on net at both ends.

 

Dark fibre isn't something we're often accessed for but we can do. I'll send you a PM as it'd normally have to go through a specialist team here.

 

We can also use 3rd parties to offer a PIA solution using BT's ducts over 6.5km, Again though expect a meaty price to do that. I'd estimate at least £35k for a brand new build to install, then there's PIA rental fee's and also fee's if it breaks.

 

Is there a reason why you want Dark Fibre over say a 10Gbps point to point EAD type solution?

 

Thanks

 

Dave

Edited April 18, 2024 by SchoolsBroadband

[Oaktech]

Worth enquiring about City Fibre - they were offering dark fibre for around 6k a year per link to pretty anywhere in the same local area if you already have their internet connectivity. If you didn't have their internet service there was a construction charge to install. We linked a secondary and 2 primaries, one was about 800m away and the other 4km, no difference in price.

[Net_Man]

@Jonah

 

If you have an internet connection with LGFL speak to them. They can and have in the past connected different school networks located at other sites together without the traffic even leaving the LGFL network.

 

Let me know if you need a contact name.

[ITGURU]

all our sites are with emPSN with site to site full IP connectivity. Around 5.5K per year for 500mb on gig circuit so the router is just port speed capped. no need for the full gig yet so unsure what the cost would be to remove the limit.

[Wave9_Lee]

Well hello there,

 

Does anyone by chance have any recent experience regards rough pricing on dark/unlit fibre (~6.5km)?

 

Have approached Schools Broadband, BT, and Virgin but no replies as yet. We’re based in Manchester if that’s relevant.

 

Cheers.

 

What are you trying to achieve exactly? The requirement determines the solution. For instance, Openreach EAD P2P could be around £3500-4500 per annum at 1Gbps and £7500-8500 at 10Gbps subject to postcodes/exchange and installation charges etc. If both sites are mostly independent of each other apart from a select number of services then you might use VPN/SDWAN over 2 internet links as each site would have their own internet access. i.e 2 schools with their own internet needs, but centrally hosted voice/AD/content etc. Need to understand your bandwidth, resilience, latency requirements. Happy to chat through anytime..