Harlock, Curtis, Mark...
While it's true that MFNX focuses its energies almost entirely on dark fiber deployment for sale to other carriers and service providers, at the moment, they do have other point architectures in play, using DWDM.
They are not entirely biblical about the dark fiber aspect, in other words, and they will optimize on wavelength count where they find it desirable or necessary. They treat the subject in a very strategic fashion, in fact.
In urban settings where they've deployed vast amounts of fiber, they will use DWDM (not sure whose devices, or if, in fact, they limit themselves to only one or two... my guess is that it's on an individual case basis due to the different number and variety of partners they're working with) between their main distribution centers and Carrier Hotels and colocation points, very large buildings with multiple Fortune companies, and ISP Meet Points, NAPs, etc. I am aware of several such instances in NY City, alone.
I tend to think of their treatment of this option is similar to how a major brokerage would treat their own in house, or proprietary, trading. It's still an elective for them, and they can get by with their dark fiber sales for now, reserving a percentage of every pull for future in-house use, after the chasm stage DWDMs become obsolete.
This usually takes a couple of months, it seems, but it takes a little longer than that to exhaust a route with multiple 864-strand tubes in place. For this reason, their deployment of lambda multipliers may still be off into the distance on the shorter routes, especially, where it is still far cheaper to pull than multiply.
A lot will depend on how the new fiber economies translate into altering the value bases used by the carriers in assessing their rates to end users, and whether whole strands will be sold, or individual wavelengths, or even subdivisions (wavelets). If the rates remain high, then we might see some hesitancy on their part to go after multiplication units, esepcially with newer units with each passing day promising greater yields. Timing, in this regard, is crucial to them.
If the rates begin to fall precipitously, more so, say, than we've even contemplated until now, then they may want to make up in quantity of lambdas what they can't get per strand unit. So, they might install DWDMs and other subdividing componentry, or pull more strands. Distance tradeoffs will affect these decisions, as well as falling unit level costing of the boxes. And other route-related factors, as you can well imagine.
Their approach to their overseas deployments might be more aggressive, which is consistent with what I stated before, in that they don't limit themselves to a single rule on this topic. My guess would be that in the International space, they may view it as a one time shot, and maybe invest a little more in maximizing their optical potential sooner as opposed to later, for maximum present effect. But I'm only speculating here, so it shouldn't be taken too seriously, as I could be wrong on this.
QWST also takes this wait-and-see-what-materializes approach, prepared to deploy just-in-time measures in the future, always evaluating their options, as I'm sure LVLT and other fiber barons do, as well. Although it is apparent that the larger ones have already committed a number of their longer routes to DWDM by now. FWIW.
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
