without pilots... or a maintenance manager! Speaking of which, seeing this kind of question, from a VP at a company in the submarine cable business, would sure make me leery of leasing fiber from them, if there's an alternative.  Now, one would not necessarily expect a VP of Business Development to know all the details of network management - but seems to me that he's basically advertising that he's learned about cable breaks from irate customers, rather than being forewarned by his operations team that "you're about to get a bunch of irate calls." Heck, back in the old days (I was at BBN designing network management for the original Defense Data Network) - we knew how to instrument our networks, and design for redundancy & diverse routing.  Boy did we have egg on our face when a backhoe took out all the connectivity to the Northeast.  We detected the outage just fine - but we (and lots of other folks) were all caught short to discover that AT&T Long Lines routed all of our "redundant" circuits through the SAME fiber bundle.  I expect there are others here who remember that debacle. Miles Fidelman On 6/8/20 2:29 PM, Mel Beckman wrote:

It sounds like you don’t have an experienced fiber optic network engineer on the project yet. There is much more to facilities monitoring then just checking for disruption. I recommend that you either retain a consulting engineer or employ one during development. I’m sure operators here are happy to share their ideas, but you will need some expertise in fiber infrastructure to make intelligent decisions about optics, wavelengths, in-band versus out-of-band administration, and a slew of other topics.

Doing this without experienced engineering help is like starting an airline without pilots :-)

-mel via cell

...

On Jun 8, 2020, at 11:24 AM, Rod Beck <rod.beck@unitedcablecompany.com> wrote:

 Hi,

My colleague and I may be running a new dark fiber network in the Northeast.

We need an outsourced NOC to monitor for fiber cuts and serve as a contact point for customers.

Am I wrong in believing that there should be a way of lighting a single pair in the cable and then monitoring it for signal disruption? It is not a perfect solution, but arguably better than learning that the cable has been damaged from an irate customer.

Best to take any replies off the message board.

Thanks.

Regards,

Roderick.

Roderick Beck

VP of Business Development

United Cable Company

www.unitedcablecompany.com <http://www.unitedcablecompany.com>

New York City & Budapest

rod.beck@unitedcablecompany.com

Budapest: 36-70-605-5144

NJ: 908-452-8183

1467221477350_image005.png

-- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown

I would calm down, Miles. 😃 Dark fiber networks are built and usually maintained by the same construction company that installed them. And a dark fiber network does not even need a single full time optical engineer. If the cable is damaged, then the guys who installed it will repair it. All the expertise is there. And no, I am not an executive at a undersea cable system. i was one of Hibernia Atlantic's top salesmen during the early years from 2004-2011 after which I retired. ________________________________ From: NANOG <nanog-bounces@nanog.org> on behalf of Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@meetinghouse.net> Sent: Monday, June 8, 2020 9:00 PM To: nanog@nanog.org <nanog@nanog.org> Subject: Re: Outsourced NOC Solutions without pilots... or a maintenance manager! Speaking of which, seeing this kind of question, from a VP at a company in the submarine cable business, would sure make me leery of leasing fiber from them, if there's an alternative. Now, one would not necessarily expect a VP of Business Development to know all the details of network management - but seems to me that he's basically advertising that he's learned about cable breaks from irate customers, rather than being forewarned by his operations team that "you're about to get a bunch of irate calls." Heck, back in the old days (I was at BBN designing network management for the original Defense Data Network) - we knew how to instrument our networks, and design for redundancy & diverse routing. Boy did we have egg on our face when a backhoe took out all the connectivity to the Northeast. We detected the outage just fine - but we (and lots of other folks) were all caught short to discover that AT&T Long Lines routed all of our "redundant" circuits through the SAME fiber bundle. I expect there are others here who remember that debacle. Miles Fidelman On 6/8/20 2:29 PM, Mel Beckman wrote: It sounds like you don’t have an experienced fiber optic network engineer on the project yet. There is much more to facilities monitoring then just checking for disruption. I recommend that you either retain a consulting engineer or employ one during development. I’m sure operators here are happy to share their ideas, but you will need some expertise in fiber infrastructure to make intelligent decisions about optics, wavelengths, in-band versus out-of-band administration, and a slew of other topics. Doing this without experienced engineering help is like starting an airline without pilots :-) -mel via cell On Jun 8, 2020, at 11:24 AM, Rod Beck <rod.beck@unitedcablecompany.com><mailto:rod.beck@unitedcablecompany.com> wrote:  Hi, My colleague and I may be running a new dark fiber network in the Northeast. We need an outsourced NOC to monitor for fiber cuts and serve as a contact point for customers. Am I wrong in believing that there should be a way of lighting a single pair in the cable and then monitoring it for signal disruption? It is not a perfect solution, but arguably better than learning that the cable has been damaged from an irate customer. Best to take any replies off the message board. Thanks. Regards, Roderick. Roderick Beck VP of Business Development United Cable Company www.unitedcablecompany.com<http://www.unitedcablecompany.com> New York City & Budapest rod.beck@unitedcablecompany.com<mailto:rod.beck@unitedcablecompany.com> Budapest: 36-70-605-5144 NJ: 908-452-8183 [1467221477350_image005.png] -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown

Thank you for the most useful comment on the thread so far! If I'm buying dark fiber, I'm expecting it to be a bunch of spliced glass from end to end. Maybe (maybe!) a connector or two for patching somewhere. However, something like this would be useful to sell "managed" dark fiber. You still get the strand, but I add these boxes (or something like them) to detect and locate failures non-intrusively. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest-IX http://www.midwest-ix.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roel Parijs" <roel.parijs@gmail.com> To: "Rod Beck" <rod.beck@unitedcablecompany.com> Cc: nanog@nanog.org Sent: Monday, June 8, 2020 1:44:39 PM Subject: Re: Outsourced NOC Solutions Hello, Yes, you can install a permanent OTDR meter on the fiber. Exfo used to have them but a very cost effective solution which we have been selling for years is the Adva ALM. https://www.adva.com/en/products/network-infrastructure-assurance/alm You can even monitor the actual customer fiber, since it uses wavelength 1650nm which does not interfere with Grey / CWDM / DWDM signals. Up to 64 fibers per unit, with a maximum distance of 160km and it can even monitor PON networks behind the splitters. The best part for troubleshooting is that it integrates with existing GIS systems which show you the location of the suspected cut on a map. Regards Roel On Mon, Jun 8, 2020 at 8:25 PM Rod Beck < rod.beck@unitedcablecompany.com > wrote: Hi, My colleague and I may be running a new dark fiber network in the Northeast. We need an outsourced NOC to monitor for fiber cuts and serve as a contact point for customers. Am I wrong in believing that there should be a way of lighting a single pair in the cable and then monitoring it for signal disruption? It is not a perfect solution, but arguably better than learning that the cable has been damaged from an irate customer. Best to take any replies off the message board. Thanks. Regards, Roderick. Roderick Beck VP of Business Development United Cable Company www.unitedcablecompany.com New York City & Budapest rod.beck@unitedcablecompany.com Budapest: 36-70-605-5144 NJ: 908-452-8183 1467221477350_image005.png

Miles? Who’s miles? I’m not talking about a full-time engineer for the life of the network, just for designing the infrastructure management before first customer light. -mel via cell On Jun 8, 2020, at 12:43 PM, Rod Beck <rod.beck@unitedcablecompany.com> wrote:  Exactly. Thanks very much , Roel. Just to clarify, this is a dark fiber network already built and will be repaired by the construction company that built it. I just a system to inform them as soon as the fibers are damaged. It is definitely not a plane and does not need a pilot. 🙂 Best, Roderick. ________________________________ From: Mike Hammett <nanog@ics-il.net> Sent: Monday, June 8, 2020 9:25 PM To: Roel Parijs <roel.parijs@gmail.com> Cc: nanog@nanog.org <nanog@nanog.org>; Rod Beck <rod.beck@unitedcablecompany.com> Subject: Re: Outsourced NOC Solutions Thank you for the most useful comment on the thread so far! If I'm buying dark fiber, I'm expecting it to be a bunch of spliced glass from end to end. Maybe (maybe!) a connector or two for patching somewhere. However, something like this would be useful to sell "managed" dark fiber. You still get the strand, but I add these boxes (or something like them) to detect and locate failures non-intrusively. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest-IX http://www.midwest-ix.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roel Parijs" <roel.parijs@gmail.com> To: "Rod Beck" <rod.beck@unitedcablecompany.com> Cc: nanog@nanog.org Sent: Monday, June 8, 2020 1:44:39 PM Subject: Re: Outsourced NOC Solutions Hello, Yes, you can install a permanent OTDR meter on the fiber. Exfo used to have them but a very cost effective solution which we have been selling for years is the Adva ALM. https://www.adva.com/en/products/network-infrastructure-assurance/alm You can even monitor the actual customer fiber, since it uses wavelength 1650nm which does not interfere with Grey / CWDM / DWDM signals. Up to 64 fibers per unit, with a maximum distance of 160km and it can even monitor PON networks behind the splitters. The best part for troubleshooting is that it integrates with existing GIS systems which show you the location of the suspected cut on a map. Regards Roel On Mon, Jun 8, 2020 at 8:25 PM Rod Beck < rod.beck@unitedcablecompany.com > wrote: Hi, My colleague and I may be running a new dark fiber network in the Northeast. We need an outsourced NOC to monitor for fiber cuts and serve as a contact point for customers. Am I wrong in believing that there should be a way of lighting a single pair in the cable and then monitoring it for signal disruption? It is not a perfect solution, but arguably better than learning that the cable has been damaged from an irate customer. Best to take any replies off the message board. Thanks. Regards, Roderick. Roderick Beck VP of Business Development United Cable Company www.unitedcablecompany.com<http://www.unitedcablecompany.com> New York City & Budapest rod.beck@unitedcablecompany.com Budapest: 36-70-605-5144 NJ: 908-452-8183 1467221477350_image005.png

There is a middle ground between “not managing customer light” and “not managing anything” though. The Adva ALM solution that a few folks that have mentioned, along with others like Lucent SmartLGX, effectively bridge this gap by helping trace the precise location of cuts and even smaller scale incidents like microbends to expedite diagnosis and repair to the extent possible. It’s not a panacea and definitely not a substitute for managing the hardware at the endpoints, but it does improve operational responsiveness in a measurable way. And yes, there are dark fiber providers in the Northeast that leverage this technology, at least on some portion of their fiber plants. Dave Cohen craetdave@gmail.com

On Jun 8, 2020, at 5:40 PM, James Jun <james.jun@towardex.com> wrote:

On Mon, Jun 08, 2020 at 08:10:44PM +0000, Mel Beckman wrote:

...

I???m not talking about a full-time engineer for the life of the network, just for designing the infrastructure management before first customer light.

-mel via cell

Dude, it's dark fiber.

I for one, do _NOT_ in any shape or form, want my DF provider to put any equipment (monitoring, or otherwise) on strands I lease, period. I just want tubes in the ground, end of story. This is certainly not an airplane and does not need a pilot. It's passive tubes sitting on right of way and customer is licensed to pass light thru that passive tube. Everything else is extra, and I want no active service whatsoever (besides for power capacity at regen plant colo).

If there is a disturbance event that creates LOS alarm on customer equipment, they will call in and open a ticket to begin troubleshooting.

Name me one dark fiber provider in northeast that (unless you buy their managed dark fiber solution) will monitor your fiber strands and the customer light for you. I can tell you, major fiber providers in northeast are all the same: the customer is the monitoring system. If fiber is down, customers call in. In fact, I can't recount how many times I've had dealing with a large fiber provider here (unnamed to protect the guilty) who also requests and asks customers to shoot OTDR for them.

Generally speaking, dark fiber providers who also compete with their customers (e.g. fiber provider that sells lit services) have tendency to react faster to certain fiber cuts on certain routes, if their backbone links are sitting in them. But for specialty dark fiber providers who only sell dark, it's not a bad idea to light one of the strands for internal continuity checks; but at worst case scenario, when a customer calls in to report an LOS alarm and suspects fiber disturbance, that's usually enough information to start sending your crews out and begin taking traces.

James

My understanding is that the OP wants to put the equipment on the fiber that he leases from a supplier. That’s the question -mel via cell

On Jun 8, 2020, at 2:38 PM, James Jun <james.jun@towardex.com> wrote:

On Mon, Jun 08, 2020 at 08:10:44PM +0000, Mel Beckman wrote:

...

I???m not talking about a full-time engineer for the life of the network, just for designing the infrastructure management before first customer light.

-mel via cell

Dude, it's dark fiber.

I for one, do _NOT_ in any shape or form, want my DF provider to put any equipment (monitoring, or otherwise) on strands I lease, period. I just want tubes in the ground, end of story. This is certainly not an airplane and does not need a pilot. It's passive tubes sitting on right of way and customer is licensed to pass light thru that passive tube. Everything else is extra, and I want no active service whatsoever (besides for power capacity at regen plant colo).

If there is a disturbance event that creates LOS alarm on customer equipment, they will call in and open a ticket to begin troubleshooting.

Name me one dark fiber provider in northeast that (unless you buy their managed dark fiber solution) will monitor your fiber strands and the customer light for you. I can tell you, major fiber providers in northeast are all the same: the customer is the monitoring system. If fiber is down, customers call in. In fact, I can't recount how many times I've had dealing with a large fiber provider here (unnamed to protect the guilty) who also requests and asks customers to shoot OTDR for them.

Generally speaking, dark fiber providers who also compete with their customers (e.g. fiber provider that sells lit services) have tendency to react faster to certain fiber cuts on certain routes, if their backbone links are sitting in them. But for specialty dark fiber providers who only sell dark, it's not a bad idea to light one of the strands for internal continuity checks; but at worst case scenario, when a customer calls in to report an LOS alarm and suspects fiber disturbance, that's usually enough information to start sending your crews out and begin taking traces.

James

*Rod Beck*rod.beck at unitedcablecompany.com <mailto:nanog%40nanog.org?Subject=Re%3A%20Outsourced%20NOC%20Solutions&In-Reply-To=%3CDM5PR1301MB197970E61423A8B18D0B5558E4850%40DM5PR1301MB1979.namprd13.prod.outlook.com%3E> wrote

I would calm down, Miles. 😃 Dark fiber networks are built and usually maintained by the same construction company that installed them. And a dark fiber network does not even need a single full time optical engineer. If the cable is damaged, then the guys who installed it will repair it. All the expertise is there.

And no, I am not an executive at a undersea cable system. i was one of Hibernia Atlantic's top salesmen during the early years from 2004-2011 after which I retired.

Funny thing then, given that you signed your original query as:

Roderick Beck VP of Business Development United Cable Company www.unitedcablecompany.com<http://www.unitedcablecompany.com <http://www.unitedcablecompany.com/>>

And following the link to United Cable Company's web site reveals: "Your source for the world's most distinctive submarine cable assets."  And the about page says "Its mission, as a leading telecom consulting company, is to represent the world’s most distinctive submarine and terrestrial cable assets." Your original query asked:

Am I wrong in believing that there should be a way of lighting a single pair in the cable and then monitoring it for signal disruption? It is not a perfect solution, but arguably better than learning that the cable has been damaged from an irate customer.

In a followup message you say:

Just to clarify, this is a dark fiber network already built and will be repaired by the construction company that built it. I just a system to inform them as soon as the fibers are damaged.

So... color me confused about who you are, who you represent, what you're trying to accomplish, what you're asking, and, perhaps, why you don't already know the answer to your question, or have someone internal to your organization who already knows. Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown

I ain't so little, and I'm old enough to call bullshit when I see it. On 6/8/20 8:04 PM, TJ Trout wrote:

stop being a disrespectful little prick.

On Mon, Jun 8, 2020 at 4:52 PM Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@meetinghouse.net <mailto:mfidelman@meetinghouse.net>> wrote:

*Rod Beck*rod.beck at unitedcablecompany.com <mailto:nanog%40nanog.org?Subject=Re%3A%20Outsourced%20NOC%20Solutions&In-Reply-To=%3CDM5PR1301MB197970E61423A8B18D0B5558E4850%40DM5PR1301MB1979.namprd13.prod.outlook.com%3E> wrote

...

I would calm down, Miles. 😃 Dark fiber networks are built and usually maintained by the same construction company that installed them. And a dark fiber network does not even need a single full time optical engineer. If the cable is damaged, then the guys who installed it will repair it. All the expertise is there.

And no, I am not an executive at a undersea cable system. i was one of Hibernia Atlantic's top salesmen during the early years from 2004-2011 after which I retired.

Funny thing then, given that you signed your original query as:

...

Roderick Beck VP of Business Development United Cable Company www.unitedcablecompany.com <http://www.unitedcablecompany.com><http://www.unitedcablecompany.com <http://www.unitedcablecompany.com/>>

And following the link to United Cable Company's web site reveals:

"Your source for the world's most distinctive submarine cable assets."  And the about page says "Its mission, as a leading telecom consulting company, is to represent the world’s most distinctive submarine and terrestrial cable assets."

Your original query asked:

...

Am I wrong in believing that there should be a way of lighting a single pair in the cable and then monitoring it for signal disruption? It is not a perfect solution, but arguably better than learning that the cable has been damaged from an irate customer.

In a followup message you say:

...

Just to clarify, this is a dark fiber network already built and will be repaired by the construction company that built it. I just a system to inform them as soon as the fibers are damaged.

So... color me confused about who you are, who you represent, what you're trying to accomplish, what you're asking, and, perhaps, why you don't already know the answer to your question, or have someone internal to your organization who already knows.

Miles Fidelman

-- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown

-- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown

United Cable Company is primarily a broker. To Rod's questions : Sure, you can light a pair and monitor it many different ways. However, as James has said already, most people who want dark fiber are going to want one pair of glass from A to Z with nothing in the middle at all that they don't know about. For me, I would want to know exactly what you had in place ( full specifications , not hand waved 'monitoring device' ) , what wavelengths it used, how it functioned (fully passive, etc), along with some extensive tests to make sure I could do what I expected to without any interference or surprises, before I would come near a contract with you.

From my point of view, any device on the glass I am leasing is essentially now part of my network, so I need to know everything about it. Others may have different standards of course, but that's perfectly fine.

I would say personally though that if during due diligence, your NOC was nothing more than an answering service to someone else, which it kinda sounds like you want, I would personally not do business with that. Again others may have different standards, and that's ok. On Mon, Jun 8, 2020 at 7:54 PM Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@meetinghouse.net> wrote:

*Rod Beck* rod.beck at unitedcablecompany.com <nanog%40nanog.org?Subject=Re%3A%20Outsourced%20NOC%20Solutions&In-Reply-To=%3CDM5PR1301MB197970E61423A8B18D0B5558E4850%40DM5PR1301MB1979.namprd13.prod.outlook.com%3E> wrote

I would calm down, Miles. 😃 Dark fiber networks are built and usually maintained by the same construction company that installed them. And a dark fiber network does not even need a single full time optical engineer. If the cable is damaged, then the guys who installed it will repair it. All the expertise is there.

And no, I am not an executive at a undersea cable system. i was one of Hibernia Atlantic's top salesmen during the early years from 2004-2011 after which I retired.

Funny thing then, given that you signed your original query as:

Roderick Beck VP of Business Development United Cable Companywww.unitedcablecompany.com<http://www.unitedcablecompany.com>

And following the link to United Cable Company's web site reveals:

"Your source for the world's most distinctive submarine cable assets." And the about page says "Its mission, as a leading telecom consulting company, is to represent the world’s most distinctive submarine and terrestrial cable assets."

Your original query asked:

Am I wrong in believing that there should be a way of lighting a single pair in the cable and then monitoring it for signal disruption? It is not a perfect solution, but arguably better than learning that the cable has been damaged from an irate customer.

In a followup message you say:

Just to clarify, this is a dark fiber network already built and will be repaired by the construction company that built it. I just a system to inform them as soon as the fibers are damaged.

So... color me confused about who you are, who you represent, what you're trying to accomplish, what you're asking, and, perhaps, why you don't already know the answer to your question, or have someone internal to your organization who already knows.

Miles Fidelman

-- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown

Hello, Luma Systems has built a SaaS-based optical monitoring platform enabling vendor-neutral DWDM Channel Monitoring and In-Service OTDR with a robust predictive analytics engine. We've met with many Nanogers over the last couple years but if you're interested in learning more, please contact us offline. Eric Luma Systems On Mon, Jun 8, 2020 at 11:47 AM Roel Parijs <roel.parijs@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello,

Yes, you can install a permanent OTDR meter on the fiber.

Exfo used to have them but a very cost effective solution which we have been selling for years is the Adva ALM. https://www.adva.com/en/products/network-infrastructure-assurance/alm You can even monitor the actual customer fiber, since it uses wavelength 1650nm which does not interfere with Grey / CWDM / DWDM signals. Up to 64 fibers per unit, with a maximum distance of 160km and it can even monitor PON networks behind the splitters. The best part for troubleshooting is that it integrates with existing GIS systems which show you the location of the suspected cut on a map.

Regards Roel

On Mon, Jun 8, 2020 at 8:25 PM Rod Beck <rod.beck@unitedcablecompany.com> wrote:

...

Hi,

My colleague and I may be running a new dark fiber network in the Northeast.

We need an outsourced NOC to monitor for fiber cuts and serve as a contact point for customers.

Am I wrong in believing that there should be a way of lighting a single pair in the cable and then monitoring it for signal disruption? It is not a perfect solution, but arguably better than learning that the cable has been damaged from an irate customer.

Best to take any replies off the message board.

Thanks.

Regards,

Roderick.

Roderick Beck VP of Business Development

United Cable Company

www.unitedcablecompany.com

New York City & Budapest

rod.beck@unitedcablecompany.com

Budapest: 36-70-605-5144

NJ: 908-452-8183

[image: 1467221477350_image005.png]

On 6/8/20 3:01 PM, Matt Harris wrote:

Is that considered true by most leased dark fiber providers? If I'm leasing a dark fiber circuit from a provider, I generally expect that what I'm leasing is in fact one [or more] physical strands of fiber - not a somehow redundant connection. Since he mentioned that this would be a dark fiber network, I would tend to assume that's the product that he'd be offering. Indeed, this has also been my experience with other providers, including very large and relatively smaller ones - when leasing dark fiber, or subscribing to a DWDM-based service, I'm going to be tied to a single, specific path and physical disruptions to said path will impact my connectivity. That's always been my expectation and experience at least - am I wrong, or has this changed at some point?

Some carriers offer protected waves. They're protected at layer 1/1.5 using a combination of OTN wrappers and optical switches. My experience has been that "wave" services are generally unprotected unless you request otherwise. They're also one of the few "lit" services where grooming clauses are not just well-accepted but often standard or even implied in the service definition (the service is defined as traversing a specific path/paths). Protection usually comes at a premium cost since you're essentially buying the same lambda (or ODU) along multiple paths. Glass is glass. If you want protection, find more glass. I'm not even sure how you'd offer a protected "dark fiber" service without encroaching on the ability of the subscriber to light it to their pleasing. -- Brandon Martin