What is Dim Fiber?
Optical fiber only partially lit in a fiber optic transmission system (FOTS) employing wavelength division multiplexing (WDM).WDM technology can support a considerable number of wavelengths running simultaneously over a single optical fiber within a cable comprising perhaps a great number of fibers. A dim fiber is one over which not all available wavelengths have been lit and which, therefore, has excess capacity.

Why Dim Fiber?

A dim Fiber customer gets assigned a wavelength in a fiber span that provides flexibility and performance similar to dark fiber with the following benefits:

• Use of fiber span not limited to a specific bandwidth, just a specific wavelength, thus the customer has more control.
• Reduced equipment on the circuit reducing potential outages.
• Reduced equipment on the circuit reducing processing latency.
• Dark Fiber performance at a lower cost.
• Dark Fiber performance with a variety of contract terms closer to customer experience with lit services.

Why CFN Services Dim Fiber Solutions?

• With CFN Services as your partner on your dim fiber plans – CFN will manage and monitor the health of the fiber span via other circuits running on the same fiber span.
• Dim Fiber allows wireless operators to take advantage of the owners economics and cost efficiencies of a managed backhaul solution, which provides lowest per unit cost as the backhaul traffic increases
• CFN takes away the hassle and worry of managing an Outside Plant Network such as relocations, construction, outages, etc. by managing the full solution so as a customer you get only the benefit of dim without the down side.
• For longer spans, CFN can provide mid-span regeneration reducing equipment, new collocations and operational cost and complexity for the customer.

Contact CFN Services to see if Dim Fiber is the solution for you: Contact CFN Now

THE CURRENT ENVIRONMENT
When financial services and other firms around the world rely on your global infrastructure to transact business, you need to ensure low latency and highest reliability possible. That’s one of the key reasons CFN Services chose Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers for colocation. The provider of network services wanted a partner that enabled it to continue delivering premium services.
THE SOLUTION
CFN evaluated a variety of data center providers, ultimately choosing Equinix. “It’s important that we partner with one of the largest colocation providers to get closer to our growing base of electronic trading customers. Moreover, Equinix’s quality of service, reliability, and professionalism are renowned,” explains Wil Tirado, vice president of Engineering for CFN.
Equinix’s focus on specific vertical markets was also key because it aligns with CFN’s
go-to-market approach. “Equinix’s knowledge of the needs of different industries allows
us to leverage relevant product offerings in those spaces,” continues Tirado.
WHY EQUINIX
Maintaining carrier neutrality
CFN develops customized network solutions that optimize connections to multiple exchanges and trading venues. To ensure optimized connections along with diversity offerings, CFN’s Low Latency Global Exchange Infrastructure spans multiple providers. As a carrier-neutral network integrator, CFN sought a partner with the same approach.
“A network neutral and carrier rich data center enables us to be responsive to
our customers’ requirements. Equinix allows us to ensure we continue providing our customers with the most optimized network solutions,” says Tirado.
CFN serves customers in the enterprise, public sector, and carrier markets, including financial traders that require very high network performance. The electronic trading community requires high speed connectivity to reduce risk and stay competitive. These financial customers gain significant benefits from CFN’s commitment to continually optimize its network as part of its Low Latency Improvement Plan. In addition to using FiberSource®, its proprietary nationwide infrastructure knowledge and relationship base of nearly 250,000 route miles of fiber and 550 metro networks, CFN leverages all means necessary to decrease latency and insure diversity on its routes.

“It’s unique to find a great combination of network availability from multiple carriers colocated with a dense community of financial market participants. Equinix is a key component of our ever-growing global low-latency infrastructure.”
Wil Tirado, Vice President of Engineering, CFN Services. Download Full Case Study

BM&FBovespa does it again.  Operating one of Brazil’s biggest securities exchange, gained the most in a year in Sao Paulo trading after JPMorgan Chase & Co. said the stock price doesn’t reflect the company’s growth prospects. With a 7.24% rise on May 10.  This follows their announcement of going over 70,000 in January. Not to mention another landmark as the number of single stock option contracts traded on its derivatives section in March exceeded that traded on any of the largest US options exchanges, according to data from the World Federation of Exchanges. The Brazilian bourse traded 87.5m that month, compared with 79.3m at the Chicago Board Options Exchange, 66.6m at the International Securities Exchange, and 58.9m at Nasdaq OMX PHLX.

All of this makes BM&FBovespa an exchange to not be ignored. In this year of asset and geographical diversification in trading strategies, BM&FBovespa is expected to see unusually higher growth of volume.

CFN Services is proud to be part of this growth, by providing lowest latency connectivity from all the major trading venues back to Sao Paulo. CFN Services, is the only provider to offer the Latency Improvement Plan. When you sign your contract with CFN you know the latency you will receive today and are committed to improve that latency during the duration of the contract – ensuring you are still the lowest latency in the future.

For lowest latency connections, capacity is limited – get in the queue now to reserve not just your low latency to Sao Paulo for today, but ensure you are part of the next network improvement plan

Contact us now:  lowlatency@cfnservices.com    703-788-6633

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By now there’s no doubt about it: mobile operators need to get their backhaul networks in condition to meet the burgeoning market for anytime, anywhere data access. Backhaul, once considered the humdrum side of an operator’s network, has become the topic du jour now that the mobile phone customershave shifted to smartphones and are taking advantage of data-hungry services in a big way. Earlier this month, AT&T reported that its wireless data traffic has grown more than 5,000 percent over the past three years, largely due to smartphones, which are used by about 40 percent of its post-paid customer base. All operators have to contend with this growth, and quickly: smartphones should represent the vast majority (65%) of phones sold in the country by 2012, according to Creative Strategies, an analyst firm. Operators are taking steps to prepare their networks to meet the expected demand, and the process of identifying specific backhaul needs and configuring the best solutions will force companies to bring the backhaul problem to the forefront of their infrastructure and business planning. This is a closer look at the available options and considerations operators must keep in mind as they prepare to build out this part of their networks.

The background for this case study is that leading global carrier with more than $30 billion in revenues had launched a strategic initiative to significantly reduce the $10 billion in local access transport costs it was spending with the local telephone companies (LECs).  This then left CFN Services with a challenge. This challenge was to look at feasibility for local access network optimization and LEC collocation expansion into markets with a strong preexisting fiber footprint.  They then would build a business case for network expansion across all types with the limited capital deployment and no required operational resource expansion needed.

CFN then analyzed the carrier’s embedded access transport circuits, the costs and the growth requirements at the many facilities level for Las Vegas, NV; Norfolk, VA; and Houston, TX to figure out the carrier was spending more than $25 million annually on special access and multiplexing services.  They then thought that by leveraging FiberSource ® CFN may be able to iterate the carrier’s capacity requirements and then embedded cost structure against the available base of a 3^rd party fiber facility’s infrastructure.

The final solution included: Turnkey deployment of end-to-end fiber networks in 3 mark, interconnection of the carrier’s POP with 36 LEC collocations, gross access savings of more than 60% and net transport savings of more than 35%.

If you would like to read more on this topic, feel free to visit our case study on it.

It is a well-known fact that in general faster is between when it comes to almost everything in the world. In the Electronic Trading industry being the first in the queue is not just better, it can mean over a million of dollars for your company. One must think when millions of dollars at stake, every aspect of the equation is needed to be evaluated. Not to worry, CFN Services is now providing Electronic Traders a new aspect to their low latency goal. They are now in the race to Alpha and there is a new variable in the mix as well. In the past many Electronic Trading firms have had very little say in the options available for their network choices.  They were held captive to a large Carrier or an Electronic Trading Extranet provider. By the Carrier having a network footprint that was not optimized for the Electronic Trading, instead it was only optimized for the legacy voice services; and trading platform provider in which the Carrier was utilizing the legacy network to help maximize their network efficiencies. When a company is requires low latency, a legacy voice backbone network cannot make this idea happen.

CFN Services has since turned this model upside down by creating their own circuits that are specific for the Electronic Trading space. They did this by utilizing optimal spans from multiple carriers and were able to create specific routes that are specifically focused on latency. CFN Services then were able to provide customized networks for those firms that require a higher-level network optimization to reach their low latency goals. CFN has since then developed turnkey networks to the top Global trading exchanges in Chicago, New York, Boston, Toronto, London, Frankfurt, Paris, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.

If you would like to read more on this topic then check out our case study.

A Tier 1 mobile carrier was operating a statewide network of more than 1,000 cell sites interconnecting with 2 primary mobile switching centers (MSCs). The carrier was spending more than $15 million annually on local access transport services for backhaul from the cell sites to the MSCs and interconnection from the MSCs to the local telephone company’s (LEC) access tandems. A planned 3G network upgrades promised to double the T1 capacity requirements at more than 600 cell sites.

The plan was to reduce the leased network transport costs in the face of pending capacity growth, while positioning the backhaul network to support backhaul for 3G broadband data services. Requirements at the facilities level between the cell sites and the MSC and between the MSC and the public switched network. By leveraging its FiberSource® design platform and network optimization tools, CFN designed an optimized metro core fiber network that interconnected the MSCs and pushed interconnection points with the LEC out from the MSCs to 7 strategically placed LEC central office collocations. CFN then working with the leading optical equipment vendors designed a turnkey optical transport platform to displace existing DS1, DS3, and SONET circuits that were at or past term. In addition, the optical transport platform was designed to deliver an aggregate capacity of more than 4,000 T1s.

To read more on the case study visit CFN Services webpage.

A leading content provider wanted to create a global content network and they wanted this network to be tested in 32 sites that were found in North America, South America, Europe and Asia to help with the economic costs of the services that would be needed to create this network. The provider wanted to know the economics of using SONET, wavelength or dark fiber services for this project. In order to design a network solution and business case for metro, intercity, and intercontinental fiber based transport.
CFN Services reviewed the 32 sites across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia to determine economics of using SONET, wavelength and dark fiber networks to reach each designated site. CFN Services then identified Tier 1 Internet peering points and collocation facilities in 22 cities and then created preliminary fiber network ring designs to connect all the facilities. This was followed up with CFN Services establishing business case inputs for optical transport equipment and management services, SONET, wavelength and dark fiber services. This allowed CFN Services to provide their customer with end to end network design and architecture based on business case recommendations. This information then was used to manage the procurement and integration of all SONET, wavelength and dark fiber services together and to help build the fiber network extensions to interconnect off-net facilities with the core network fiber ring. Once the networks were completed CFN Services then began to create ways to manage the engineering, furnishing, and installation of all the optical transport as well as the end-to-end test, acceptance, and turn up the network.
To read more on this case study visit CFN Services Webpage

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