Dedicated, unlit transport between your endpoints — your light, your optics, your network design — backed by carrier-grade reach that scales up to 100 Gbps. Real transport, not a managed Ethernet service dressed up as one.
Dark fibre is a product where the buyer who needs it knows exactly what they want, and the buyer who doesn’t is usually better served by Business Ethernet. We’re happy to be straight about that — and we deliver both. We sell point-to-point dark fibre as unlit pairs between two endpoints across our carrier mesh: you light it, we provide the path. Where buying a whole fibre pair doesn’t stack up — typically on long-haul — we sell managed wavelengths instead: a single wavelength on a long-haul DWDM circuit, giving you dedicated bandwidth and reach without owning the fibre.
The distinction matters when you’re scoping the right product. Dark fibre is fibre pairs on the underlying carrier network — we hold the relationships with those carriers, do the cross-connects, provision the route and hand you the pair. A lit service on a dark fibre route isn’t dark fibre; that’s Business Ethernet, with a real SLA and a single managed service.
Who it suits
Dark fibre makes sense for organisations that want to own everything above the fibre layer — security-by-design networks, enterprises with their own network engineering teams and optical strategy who bring their own equipment, carriers needing transport for their own services, and content and platform businesses with non-standard interconnect needs. It also has a place in datacentre interconnect, though much of the DC interconnect we deliver is Layer 2 over the carrier mesh rather than direct dark; dark from us fits best when you want your own optics on a path that doesn’t exist as a managed product.
Managed wavelengths suit the cases where long-haul dark is impractical or uneconomic — inter-capital circuits, content distribution backbones, and large enterprise WANs where buying a whole pair between two capital cities is the wrong answer for a single circuit.
How dark sits in our network
We deliver dark fibre two ways. Across the broader multi-carrier mesh we operate as a carrier — with direct relationships to carriers including Telstra, Vocus and Optus across the underlying dark estates — we provision unlit pairs and managed wavelengths nationally. Where the route lands on Real World Networks own-built infrastructure — RWN is our sister Greenfields Carrier — that’s an RWN product on RWN-owned fibre. Either path, we hold the carrier relationships and do the cross-connect work, the patch-panel termination, the route-diversity decisions and the optical loss calculations. That’s carrier work, not reseller work.
We terminate dark fibre into customer equipment at your premises, into our datacentres across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, Darwin and Perth (see Colocation), or at our Equinix presence for DC cross-connect.
We scope before we quote
Before we quote dark fibre, we’ll ask what you’re actually trying to do. If the answer is “high-bandwidth, dedicated, between two endpoints,” that’s often Business Ethernet. Dark fibre is the right answer when the requirement is more specific: you need the transport, you have the optics, and the use case is genuinely about owning the layer underneath. If dark is right, we quote it cleanly. If Business Ethernet is right, we quote that instead and tell you why.
What's included
- Point-to-point dark (unlit) fibre pairs across our carrier mesh
- Managed wavelengths on long-haul circuits — dedicated bandwidth and reach without buying the fibre
- Carrier-grade transport scaling up to 100 Gbps — your light, your equipment, your network design
- Metro and intercity reach across Australia, drawing on the same multi-carrier mesh that delivers Business Ethernet
- Common for DC interconnect, secure-by-design networks, carrier and content interconnect
- Suits buyers who want the transport layer to themselves and bring their own optical or networking equipment
Why it matters
The transport, not a managed service on top
Dark fibre is what you buy when you want the underlying pair, not a managed Ethernet service. Your light, your optics, your network design — we provide the unlit pair across our carrier mesh and you light it however suits, with carrier-grade reach scaling up to 100 Gbps.
Wavelengths where dark isn't the answer
Long-haul dark fibre is often impractical or uneconomic. Managed wavelengths give you the bandwidth and the geographic reach without buying the fibre — the carrier lights the route, you get a wavelength on it. Useful for inter-capital and other long-distance circuits where dark pricing doesn't make sense.
Carrier-grade engineering
Provisioning dark fibre is real carrier work — cross-connects, patch panels, optical loss calculations, route-diversity decisions. We do this end-to-end through our Carrier Services layer rather than reselling someone else's portal.
We tell you when you don't need it
Most buyers asking about dark fibre are better served by Business Ethernet — they want bandwidth and predictability, not raw transport. We'll say so up front rather than sell you a product you don't need. Dark fibre is the right answer when you specifically need unlit transport, or where managed wavelengths suit the long-haul economics.
Technologies we use
- Dark fibre pairs across our multi-carrier mesh
- Managed wavelengths on long-haul carrier circuits
- Telstra, Vocus, Optus and other carrier dark / wave estates as available
- Cross-connect into customer-owned optical and networking equipment
- Equinix and DC cross-connect for endpoint termination