Do’s & don’t’s regarding
managed dark fiber
TF-MSP meeting Amsterdam, 9/10 November 2010
Expertise sharing
- Invest in developing expertise regarding acquisition
and operations of managed dark fiber within
NREN’s
- Invest in sharing experience as NREN’s:
- Standardization of fibers, technology etc.
- Compare prices
- Tender procedures (e.g. competitive dialogue)
- Set up a repository within TERENA with documents
like Calls for Proposals, SLA’s, best practices etc.
Housing & colocation
- Housing equipment at customers is preferred to
commercial colocation
-
trust relation
neutrality from carriers
providing services (lightpaths) is easier
higher availability (direct connection to backbone)
less expensive
more flexibility in operations
But: use contracts, pay for services and monitor/audit
the quality of the housingservice periodically
Suppliers
- Prefer fiber from telco’s/carriers for primary routes
and use fiber from other suppliers (e.g. power
supply companies with less service guarantees) for
redundancy
- Using various suppliers is not necessarily a problem
but monitoring and analyzing the impact of
maintenance, fiber cuts etc. becomes crucial for the
NREN
- Use an additional fiberpair on important routes
(emergencies, transitions etc.)
Contract models
- Take into account the impact of a long-term IRU
contract with major up-front capital investments
(use excellent lawyers)
- Don’t assume that the concept of an IRU is
standardized (different per carrier, NREN etc.)
- Don’t expect too much from SLA’s (penalties
related to O&M fees don’t have a lot of effect)
- Take into account that most SLA’s exclude
scheduled maintenance & fiber cuts…
Payment model
- Long term projects should invest in long term IRU’s
whereas short(er) term project may chose “capital
lease”
- Available budget and cash flow requirements are
dominant deciding factors for NREN’s
- Don’t assume that periodic payments are the best
guarantee for good service-levels: a contract with
performance guarantees (% of the contract value
deposited at a bank) leads to same result
Infrastructure/architect
ure
- Use cross border fibers for reasons of:
- Efficiency, costs & user experience (delay for
certain applications)
But:
- responsibilities must be clearly defined
- business/tariff model is required
- Standardize on a single fibertype (G.652)
- Experiment with alien wavelengths
- Rather invest in redundancy (backbone & local
loops into buildings) then in an operations team
Operations
- Extend responsibility for operations on fiber level
from backbone to local loops (upto CPE)
- Invest in documentation of fiber routes (ODF –
ODF, so including local patches)
- Invest in obtaining information regarding the
physical routing of fibers (street level)
- Be transparant towards suppliers, housing
providers etc. regarding documentation
Miscellanious
- Try to secure structural funds (EU) where possible
and learn from NREN’s that have succeeded in
getting access to these funds