In today’s rapidly evolving digital world, businesses need robust, secure, and scalable connectivity solutions to stay ahead. While traditional leased lines and broadband services may suffice for basic needs, dark fibre offers a transformative, future-proof alternative. Increasingly, businesses are turning to dark fibre solutions, particularly from national network providers like Glide, to achieve substantial savings and unlock long-term benefits.
What is dark fibre?
Dark fibre refers to unused, private fibre-optic cables that businesses and organisations can lease to build their own secure, dedicated networks. Unlike shared broadband or leased line services, dark fibre offers unrestricted, high capacity bandwidth that is entirely controlled by the user. This bespoke solution provides unparalleled security, flexibility and reliability, making it ideal for businesses with demanding and evolving connectivity needs.
Traditional offering vs. dark fibre
One of the primary reasons why businesses choose dark fibre is due to the potential for significant cost savings over time.
The table below illustrates the cost comparison over 10 years between a traditional 10Gbit/s ethernet circuit and a single dark fibre based on a 400m point-to-point route.
Comparison summary
As you can see from the table above, the overall cost of ownership for dark fibre is significantly less than that of the leased line.
- Upfront investment: Dark fibre requires a higher initial investment (£8,000 in the first year) due to infrastructure installation.
- Long-term savings: After the upfront cost, dark fibre delivers substantial annual savings, reducing costs to £720 per year compared to £6,000 with the traditional offering.
- Total savings: Over ten years, organisations save £49,800, equating to over 70% reduction in costs by choosing dark fibre.
Beyond cost savings, dark fibre offers invaluable benefits allowing businesses to evolve and grow as quickly as the fast paced technological world they operate in*.
1. Complete control and customisation
Dark fibre technology offers incredible flexibility, allowing businesses to fully control and customise their networks. These solutions can be tailored to each individual businesses’ needs, to connect one building to another or create a multi-site network, offering unmatched adaptability through bespoke options.
2. Enhanced security
The dark fibre network is private and isolated, reducing the risk of cyberattacks. Since the network is not shared (contended), businesses can implement their own firewalls and protocols to always ensure an end-to-end secure connection.
3. Scalability and futureproofing
Dark Fibre can accommodate unlimited data volumes, making it ideal for businesses planning to scale. Whether it’s upgrading from 1Gbit/s to 10Gbit/s or beyond, the infrastructure is ready to support future demands without requiring additional investment.
4. Superior performance
Dark Fibre delivers low-latency, high-speed connectivity, ideal for data-intensive applications such as cloud computing, video conferencing and large-scale data transfers. It also ensures that bandwidth is not impacted by external factors like network congestion.
Conclusion
As the digital demands on organisations continue to accelerate, the importance of robust, future-ready infrastructure cannot be overstated. Dark fibre represents not only a cost-effective solution but also a strategic asset, enabling greater control, scalability and security across your network.
By investing today, businesses position themselves for long-term operational efficiency and technological agility. With experienced providers like Glide guiding the way, the shift to dark fibre is both a smart financial decision and a forward-thinking move towards sustainable digital transformation.
For more information, or to register for a free feasibility study, please fill out the contact form below.
* Please note that the pricing information provided does not include the applicable fibre tax, which may affect the overall cost.
For detailed information on the fibre tax, please refer to the UK Government's consultation document on business rates relief for new fibre on telecommunication hereditaments: Click here.
Fibre tax is now applied as business rates on broadband network infrastructure in England and Wales, including underground dark fibre.
