Spain is one of the leading European countries in both coverage and penetration of FTTH fiber connections. However, behind this positive figure there is also another: there are currently almost two million kilometers of dark or dark fiber in national territory.

Fiber that is deployed but has not yet been illuminated, has not yet been activated for use, is called dark. In this way, for example, operators can take advantage of opening the streets and decide to leave unused “wires” installed as a forecast for the future when demand grows and thus do not have to go through the process again.

According to the latest annual report published by the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC)the fiber optic circuits whose wires or cables do not have light impulses passing through them numbered almost two million (1,858,478 kilometers of dark fiber).

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The distribution is done mainly between two companies. On the one hand, we have Red Eléctrica Española, the largest owner of this technology in Spain (it does so through its subsidiary, Reintel, which manages the kilometers of fiber optics that are deployed between the electricity transport network and the railway network, among others). Next we find Lyntia, a neutral operator that in 2019 became the second largest player in the market after acquiring the exploitation rights from Iberdrola.

The dark fiber market in Spain is highly concentrated, since these two companies have more than 90% of the dark fiber market in our country and have the power of it.

Operators like Vodafone, Orange and MásMóvil, rent this type of technology to offer their users a greater Internet connection capacity and maximum speed. Implemented in the sections of your network, where your connection deployment does not reach.

Dark fiber is also especially practical for administrations and companies, since they can interconnect their offices and equipment with a high capacity for data transfer and storage.

The speed of the links will depend on the active equipment installed at the ends. If the connected equipment uses interfaces of 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps or higher speeds, this will be the maximum speed that the dark fiber link will provide. This scalability is one of the biggest benefits companies take advantage of.

This is also a business opportunity for those companies that have laid the fiber and are its owners. The rental or transfer of this fiber is done raw, that is, it will be the buyer who decides the use he wants to give it and the transmission technology he wants to apply.

In conclusion, although it may seem like a waste, this dark fiber is interesting because with those thousands of kilometers of dark fiber, the providers have ensured that both domestic use, technology parks and private companies can be satisfied in the future.

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