LuxConnect’s Dark
Fiber network
Since the inauguration of the company, LuxConnect has deployed and documented its own optical fiber network across the country. The company has been working together with other infrastructure providers with the objective of reducing installation costs while increasing deployment speed – an innovating concept in infrastructure deployment.
The network has been designed with the aim of interconnecting all the country’s Data Centers. LuxConnect started to install connections along the motorways and railways, but soon the project managers had to find other infrastructures capable of accommodating Dark Fibers.
Our network spans 1.900 km of optical fiber – the total length of cable laid. Considering that each cable contains multiple fiber strands, this number becomes even more impressive. Standard cables contain 144 fibers, while longer-distance cables can have up to 288 fibers. Remarkably, since 2007, LuxConnect has installed nearly a quarter of a million kilometers of fiber.
The specificity of LuxConnect lies in the fact that the fiber connecting our Data Centers has no connectors. When two fibers need to be connected, we exclusively use welds in order to meet the safety requirements of our customers.
National broadband
strategy
In 2010, the Luxembourg government adopted an ambitious very-high-speed broadband strategy. The goal of the strategy was to make 1 Gbps connections available to 100% of businesses and households by 2020. LuxConnect is proud to support the efforts of the government. LuxConnect is rolling out a fiber network that connects the POPs of the incumbent operator, thus allowing alternative operators to connect the last mile. LuxConnect also interconnects stand-alone cable networks. Once connected by LuxConnect’s Dark Fiber, these networks can be upgraded in order to provide very-high-speed Internet services to their customers.
An innovative
fiber deployment
model
Thanks for instance to the municipalities, the municipal syndicates and Luxembourg operators, as far back as ten years ago, LuxConnect was able to develop an innovating fiber deployment model – which was at the basis of a European directive on the accelerated deployment of ultra-fast broadband: for example, a municipality which grants us permission to lay our cable in the empty pipes of its territory receives optic fiber in return, for instance to link its administrative buildings.
This «capital fiber» thus allows a municipality to develop innovative ideas. This is a win-win exchange that LuxConnect offers to all those who can make pipes available. The municipal syndicates, operators in the sector of energy, water, sewage, gas etc. are very interested in this cooperation model, which was adopted at European level as a standard in a directive that was transposed into Luxembourg law. LuxConnect tries to make maximum use of existing infrastructure, sometimes even infrastructure that appears on schematics which date back more than just a couple of decades.
Customers
LuxConnect mainly installs Dark Fiber backbone, i.e. pure transport fiber that does not connect with the end customer. Customers are national and foreign operators who are present in Luxembourg. We are the wholesalers’ wholesaler, providing the infrastructure through which our customer, operator or provider provides a service to another customer, who may in turn be an operator, a provider or an end customer.
On the other hand, LuxConnect cooperates with Luxembourg public authorities to provide the «backbone» for critical services.
Multiple international
breakouts
A total of 16 breakouts are available today and used by the Luxembourg ICT community to Belgium, France, and Germany.
