The Bright Future of Dark Fiber

[Commentary] Santa Cruz (CA) is a mid-sized city of just over 62,000 lying just half an hour’s drive — over the Santa Cruz mountains — from Silicon Valley. I haven’t been there for a long time, but I remember a sleepy, pretty town and the blaring sound produced by a bunch of those aforementioned enormous sea lions under the wharf at the sea’s edge. Sleep no more, Santa Cruz. Soon you may be known for something supercharged: a ubiquitous fiber-to-the-home network built by the city and operated by a local Internet service provider that ensures everyone in town has affordable and fast access to the Internet.

What will enable Santa Cruz to do this is something called dark fiber. Yes, that term sounds unlikely, like the title of a cyberpunk novel you might find in a musty used bookstores in a place just like Santa Cruz. But it’s actually the key to unlocking powerful high-speed Internet access. Santa Cruz is wisely tapping it in a public-private enterprise that fits into an overall city plan to ensure that younger generations stick around. But the Santa Cruz model isn’t the only one: there are several ways to finance and operate a high-speed Internet access facility that relies on dark fiber.

[Susan P. Crawford is the John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School]