Reputable internet provider iDNET, which has been around since 1996 and offers a variety of fibre broadband and Ethernet services to UK homes and businesses, has moved to boost their wider network resilience against “rogue JCB digging” by partnering with Zayo to install their own Dark Fibre Ring for 360Gbps of extra capacity.
The new ring essentially connects the provider’s two datacentres in London – one path takes a southerly route and the other northerly. The provider’s boss, Simon Davies, told ISPreview: “Our motive for this is not only being able to increase capacity between our two datacentres in Docklands. But mostly it enables us to provide our business customers with a resilient service whereby if one datacentre has an outage then traffic can fail-over to the other, guaranteeing continuation of service. Of course, our broadband customers will also benefit from this resilience.”
The humorous quip about “rogue JCB digging” stems from the fact that a fair few network operators have, occasionally, been struck by problems that can occur when third-party contractors, usually those working on different building or street works projects, accidentally damage cables belonging to telecoms firms.
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Such incidents are often caused by poor mapping, inexperience or outright negligence, but can take a long time for an ISP to fully resolve. Suffice to say that one way to mitigate against that is to build additional resilience into a network, although such projects aren’t cheap and can be complex to get right.
Simon added that “a great feature of this solution is that it is not power dependent. It uses a simple passive prism to split the digital laser light into different colours (wavelengths) so that even if one datacentre building suffers a power outage, then traffic from our carriers can still travel around the ring to our other datacentre.”
“Reputable internet provider iDNET”
You’re not suggesting that there maybe internet providers that are not reputable are you? LOL
Is this really news? if they negotiated this right they shouldn’t be paying more than £350/month a pair for DF between Docklands DCs, maybe with a £1500 + cross connect setup charge. Far more of an interesting story would have been “iDNET join SPNA and connect to shared dark fibre network”, anyone can buy a DF ring these days between a London sites for a pittance.