Capacity and Market
Modern fiber cables can contain up to a thousand fibers in a single cable, with potential bandwidth in the terabytes per second. It is estimated that no more than 1% of the optical fiber buried in recent years is actually "lit". Companies can lease or sell the unused fiber to other providers who are looking for service in or through an area. Many companies are "overbuilding" their networks for the specific purpose of having a large network of dark fiber for sale, reducing the overall need for trenching and municipal permitting.
In recent years the cost of small fiber-count pole-mounted cables has greatly decreased due to the high Japanese and South Korean demand for fiber to the home (FTTH) installations.
Read more about this topic: Optical Fiber Cable
Famous quotes containing the words capacity and/or market:
“Mankind’s common instinct for reality ... has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism. In heroism, we feel, life’s supreme mystery is hidden. We tolerate no one who has no capacity whatever for it in any direction. On the other hand, no matter what a man’s frailties otherwise may be, if he be willing to risk death, and still more if he suffer it heroically, in the service he has chosen, the fact consecrates him forever.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: “I seek God! I seek God!””
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)