3.3 The Next Development: Higher Education Owned Optical Fiber Networks
The cost of building optical fiber networks in the US is dropping so rapidly that it will soon be feasible for universities to own their own optical fiber networks
100km of 24 strand NZDS fiber can presently cost less than $2M
Using just present DWDM laser transmission technology, the total aggregate speed of this fiber would be around 15Tbps (15,000 Gbps)
This raises the prospect that in less than a decade US research universities will have access to almost free, unlimited bandwidth!