Innovative enterprises everywhere face skyrocketing bandwidth demands. Existing standard wavelength services are beginning to feel stretched, with shared infrastructure creating bottlenecks and unpredictable performance affecting critical operations. At this stage, you know it’s time to consider a more scalable, private solution—but fully managing a dark fiber network can be daunting, and requires the skills and resources you don’t yet have. Enter Zayo Private Networks (PNs).
Often referred to as Managed Optical Fiber Networks (MOFN), Zayo’s Private Networks is a parallel solution that offers a middle ground between shared wavelength services and fully owned dark fiber, offering the perfect balance between scalability, performance, and privacy. In this blog, we’ll explore how private networks address the challenges of growing bandwidth needs, why they’re an ideal stepping stone for enterprises planning to transition to dark fiber, and how Zayo’s newest innovation, long-haul PWNs, provide a streamlined, flexible solution for long-term success.
What are Zayo Private Networks?
First, let’s explore private networks in general.
Zayo’s Private Networks solutions deliver fully dedicated, high-capacity long-haul and metro fiber connectivity to organizations that need control over their network’s performance, security, and scalability.
Benefits of Private Networks
Private Networks offer a few key advantages:
- All the benefits of dark fiber, without in-house management expertise required
- Fiber and equipment are provisioned just for your organization, providing the greatest amount of security, scalability, and bandwidth
- 24/7/365 Network Operations Center (NOC) support keeping your network highly reliable and always on
Zayo offers two forms of private networks: Private Data Networks and Private Wavelength Networks. Both provide multiple configuration options and run on fiber and equipment dedicated to a single customer, offering more privacy than shared network services.
While Private Data Networks (PDNs) use Ethernet protocols and are best used with and built for metro networks, Private Wavelength Networks (PWNs) provide dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) equipment over dark fiber, creating private wavelength architectures.
Educational organizations are Zayo’s most common PDN customers. These customers handle highly sensitive information and need a network solution designed to cost-effectively ensure privacy and safeguard critical data. PWN customers are large enterprises with growing bandwidth needs. hey’re mainly intended for customers who need more expansive capacity and bandwidth or will eventually move to dark fiber as a more scalable, cost-effective long-term solution, but who aren’t quite ready to make that move yet.
PWNs in Action: National Airline Uses Zayo PWN Solution to Ensure Network Diversity and Uptime
After headline-making IT outages, a national airline needed to complete two data center migrations to modernize and regain customer trust – and fast. Zayo’s custom private wavelength network solution, comprised of three diverse network rings, helped the airline connect to its new data centers, enable future growth, and meet stringent diversity and uptime requirements.
Introducing Long Haul Private Wavelength Networks
Previously, Zayo primarily offered Private Wavelength Networks at the metro level. Now, Zayo has established an efficient and scalable way for customers to use long-haul PWNs, intending to migrate from standard wavelength service to dark fiber services on long-haul routes without the risks of shared infrastructure. PWNs provide a dark fiber-like experience, with dedicated infrastructure and scalability.
Long-haul PWNs give customers predictable performance and expert network operations center (NOC) support – all without the immediate complexity of self-managing a long-haul or metro dark fiber network. Zayo is the only network provider currently offering a streamlined process for customers to migrate from standard wavelengths to dark fiber.
How it Works:
Zayo’s long-haul Private Wavelength Network (PWN) runs on our Dark Fiber, offering a flexible way to transition to dark fiber ownership. With a 20-year lease, we’ll manage the DWDM equipment until you’re ready to take over.
For enterprises with growing bandwidth needs, PWN is the perfect first step. It’s purchased like dark fiber but managed like a private network for as long as you need—whether that’s five years or 20. When your team is ready, ownership is yours. Simple, flexible, and built for your long-term growth.
Who Buys Long-Haul PWNs?
The typical PWN customer is an enterprise that needs a turnkey approach to dark fiber. The customer has bandwidth requirements that are quickly outpacing their ability to scale their own internal operations teams. They are currently buying standard wavelengths over a shared wavelength network but eventually need to transition to something more scalable to meet burgeoning bandwidth requirements. To scale cost-effectively, this customer must transition to long-haul dark fiber
Of course, not all of our long-haul PWN customers fit this mold exactly, and that’s perhaps what makes this solution so great – it provides the flexibility and agility to meet enterprises wherever they are in their journey.
Benefits of Zayo’s Long-Haul PWN Solution
- Eliminate the pitfalls of shared infrastructure: Your network runs on dedicated long-haul optical solutions, ensuring predictable performance, lower latency, and zero interference from other customers.
- Scale bandwidth to meet today’s – and tomorrow’s – needs: Zayo’s network can flex beyond other network offerings, seamlessly meeting your current and future needs with no entrance bandwidth criteria.
- Flexible pricing structure: Our pricing and bandwidth are tailored to your needs – as you scale, pricing adjusts.
- Minimize third-party bottlenecks: Zayo owns and/or operates 100% of its long-haul fiber network and integrated line amplifier (ILA) sits, reducing reliance on leased circuits that can introduce bottlenecks and third-party risk.
- Benefit from a fully managed, turnkey solution: Zayo handles every aspect from network design, equipment procurement, and deployment to commissioning and ongoing operations, eliminating the need for you to immediately manage long-haul dark fiber.
- Get 24/7/365, dedicated NOC support: Zayo provides always-on, proactive monitoring with direct access to optical networks. We ensure fast response times and specialized expertise for Private Network customers.
- Choose your preferred equipment models: Zayo can design, procure, and manage DWDM or you can bring your own equipment from supported vendors, enabling true network customization.
- Seamlessly migrate to dark fiber, on your own time: Benefit from a Zayo-managed private network for as long as you need our support. When you’re ready, easily migrate to and benefit from the scalability and control of Zayo Dark Fiber.