Fibre

Ethernet over Fibre is the current generation of Leased Line technology. It supersedes the old analogue services running at 2Mb (E1 / MegaStream), 34Mb (E3), 45 and 155Mb (OC3) with fractional bandwidth options. Today BT groups these into their Prime MegaStream and MetroStream families using SDH technology. These circuits are available through LineBroker but prices are not competitive with fibre Ethernet and should only be considered as a fallback position if fibre is unavailable.

Fibre bearer circuits come in three capacities – 10Mb, 100Mb and 1000Mb (1Gig). You then order the released (useable) bandwidth to run over it. LineBroker would always recommend getting the largest bearer you can afford to allow for easy growth. Adding more bandwidth within the capacity of the bearer is a largely clerical process. Increasing beyond the capacity of the bearer requires you to start over again on a new circuit, on a new contract, and then cancel the old one when the new one is operational three months later.

10Mb and 100Mb circuits are available within a 25Km radial distance from the service providers POP and typically take 3 months to install. If you are within the 25Km then you can place an order subject to survey. The survey will be completed in the first few weeks and will reveal the actual circuit length. If this exceeds 40Km then the order cannot proceed and you have to start again. Gigabit circuits are supported over longer distances but at a significantly higher price

Typically 2-3 weeks after the initial order an engineer (usually BT Openreach) will visit your premises. They will see if there is already unused fibre coming into your building and how far it is from where you want the Router. In a multi-tenanted building the fibre probably terminates in the basement and needs to be run to your comms rack. For many premises there is a fair chance there is no fibre to the building and this may, in the worst case, require some road digging with the attendant issues of wayleave and traffic control. Any of these scenarios can lead to delays and excess construction charges (occurs with about 25% of orders). LineBroker will inform you of any such charges at the earliest opportunity at which point you can raise the paperwork to cover the additional cost or cancel the order with nothing to pay. If the excess construction charges for fibre are unacceptable then LineBroker will advise on alternative technologies such as EFM.

Although a Fibre circuit will come with a 99.99% uptime SLA it is always a good idea to consider a backup circuit so that the business can continue operation in the worst case (as in JCB digger). Just about any technology that can reach your premises can be used from simple ADSL through to a secondary (usually slower) fibre circuit. When failover occurs all public IP addresses will be switched to the failover circuits so inbound services continue to operate, albeit more slowly. When the primary circuit is restored the IP addresses and traffic will fail back and normal service is resumed.