In the 1990s and early 2000s, local governments and service providers, excited by the promise of fiber optic telecommunications, invested trillions of dollars into building fiber optic loops in their cities and metro areas in comparison to companies investing to find fiber maps.
Enthusiastic carriers and service providers invested in these new fiber map networks, but the predicted demand did not come. As a result, today many fiber graveyards sit either underutilized or completely unused and forgotten in various cities across the country.
The problem during this telecom boom-and-bust was the disconnect between the network, the software, and the hardware. In order for a technology like this to be adopted in a massive way (like was predicted), all three of these components need to be in alignment. In this case, the fiber was impressive, but there was no software yet that demanded it, and therefore no hardware.
In an article published in Fierce Telecom, Vince Jordan, a consultant to the city of Longmont, Colorado said, “Look at a company like Adelphia, which spent I don’t know how many hundreds of millions of dollars putting a fiber network in and a good chunk of that stuff is just sitting abandoned in Denver and other major metropolitan areas.”
Today, the federal government continues to fund the creation of new broadband infrastructure, but for cities with a less hefty budget, they may find the solution to their high-speed connectivity demands a little closer to home than they imagined. In fact, there may be unused fiber right underneath their feet. How could you find the fiber? With fiber maps provided by telecommunications data providers.
Finding and repurposing unused or underused fiber of the 1990s-2000s can save cities a lot of money in initial installation costs. But, the question lies – how would an organization or local government find fiber if there is any in their area? The answer – fiber network maps, fiber lit buildings, and other fiber data sets can be used by local government officials to analyze the fiber infrastructure in their area so that they can decide how best to utilize it moving forward in order to enhance their city’s high-speed Internet access and meet the growing connectivity demands.
GeoTel Communications is America’s leading provider of telecommunications infrastructure data in GIS and web-based solutions. If you are interested in obtaining fiber maps, fiber network maps, or other fiber GIS products, contact GeoTel Communications at (407) 488-8888 or click here!
Written by: The Experts at GeoTel
