Sure, you can wait until dark and then look to see which buildings are illuminated, but that’s not going to get you the kind of lit building you’re looking for. What you need is one that is on the receiving end of telecommunications laser. In other words, you want to find a building that is “lit” for fiber optic service .What difference does it make if the building is lit or not? It makes all the difference in the world when it comes to bandwidth. We’ve become accustomed to being able to just call up and order T1 line service without giving any thought as to how it would be provisioned. The technicians just show up one day and wire up the demarcation point. The reason is that nearly every building is automatically wired for telephone service. Businesses usually have multi-pair telephone cables brought in to support two or more business phone lines. T1 is a telco technology that uses the same twisted pair cable that connect analog telephones. So, you might say that businesses are pre-wired for T1 service.
That makes PBX telephone, dedicated Internet access, and point to point data connections easy to come by as long as you only need the bandwidth a T1 line can provide of 1.5 Mbps. You can also order multiple T1 lines to get 3, 6 or 9 Mbps as long as you have extra copper pair available. But what if your business needs bandwidths of 10 Mbps or more?
Ah, that’s where the power of light shows its value. Fiber optic bandwidth is nearly unlimited. In fact, you’ll run out of money before you run out of bandwidth capacity. A single fiber can support at least 10 Gbps. There are almost always multiple strands of fiber within a fiber optic cable. Beyond that, you can split the laser beam feeding each fiber strand into multiple colors, or lambdas, with wavelength division multiplexing. Each wavelength gives you the equivalent of a whole new fiber. We’re talking terabits per second at least.
If you have fiber optic communications service provisioned to your building, it’s pretty easy to turn up the bandwidth to whatever you require. Sometimes all it takes is a phone call. But what if you go into the equipment room and find only copper wiring as far as the eye can see? Then what?
This is where the next best thing to having a lit building is being near one. The reason is construction costs. Generally, the farther you have to build-out fiber optic service, the more expensive it will be. It’s a one-time expense, but the costs can easily be prohibitive. It might just make more sense to move your whole business than pay to have trenches dug or cable strung on poles for miles.
So, do you have to be right next door to a lit building to get your building lit at a reasonable cost? That sure helps, but you have options even if the nearest service is way done the road. Remember all that copper? If you only have to deliver high bandwidth services a few miles from the nearest lit building, a technology called Ethernet over Copper (EoC) can transport 10 Mbps bandwidth. In fact, within a mile or so you might extend that up to 45 Mbps. That’s as much as many businesses really need. For longer stretches, Ethernet over DS1 (EoDS1) bundles twisted pair capacity using T1 technology to give you 10 Mbps to many more locations.
You should also know that you don’t always have to pay fiber optic construction costs. The carrier may well bear that expense, as long as they have enough service commitments to justify the investment. This is something to consider if your business is located in a large office building or industrial park. By getting together with other businesses who have the same need for bandwidth, you may be able to convince a provider that it is worthwhile to light your building.
So, do you know where the lit buildings are in your area? You can find out in seconds by simply using this fiber optic service lit building finder. Just enter your building’s address and see what shows up on the map.
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