No, that’s not a new cereal promising to cleanse the colon. “Dark fiber” refers to fiber-optic cables that can deliver voice, video and data communications at a high rate of speed.
City Hall has built a municipal fiber network to link city facilities. There is an abundance of unused fiber strands that are available for lease. Currently, City Hall has a lease with Google Inc. and is looking for other parties, including SoHoNet, a dark fiber vendor.
By leasing rack spaces in the network, City Hall can provide businesses in Santa Monica with more flexibility to install high-speed networks, connect their offices in Santa Monica or to connect their offices to other businesses in the city and beyond.
The council is considering leasing rack spaces in fiber optic hubs for $700 a month for one full rack space or $17 a month per one unit rack space. A rack is a metal frame, resembling a chest of drawers, where various hardware devices such as servers, switches, hard disk drives and other computer equipment can be stored. Fiber optic cables are connected to that hardware to transmit data.
Money generated from the leases — estimated at $60,000 annually — would be used to further develop the fiber network and stimulate economic growth in Santa Monica, according to a city staff report.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 13, 2007. Read the original PDF.