Do you need help finding our if you are in a lit building?
Save time and money by speaking with one of our expert telecom advisors today.
Per our prior Blog “3 Reasons You Should Upgrade to Fiber” the affordability, scalability and reliability of fiber services is making the transition to fiber connectivity increasingly become the norm rather than the exception. What makes that transition easier, less expensive and quicker to complete is being in a “Lit Building”.
But what is a Lit Building exactly? A Lit Building is simply a term used to describe a building that already has Telecom Carrier and/or Internet Service Providers (ISPs) fiber facilities installed somewhere within it and already tied back into their networks.
So why does being in a Lit Building make such a difference for you as a tenant and equally how can you find out if your building (or a building you might be moving to) is lit?
1) Implementing Fiber services is easier in a Lit Building
When a Telecom Carrier or Internet Service Provider (ISP) already has fiber facilities within a building naturally there is considerably less effort involved for them to coordinate delivering fiber services to that building’s tenants. Their networks are already connected to their on premise facilities and so they don’t have to battle through the engineering and many steps of construction from their nearest fiber splice into the building. Some carriers and ISPs, for instance COGENT, when they “light” a building even complete the construction required to every floor of multi-tenant buildings in advance. This makes the provisioning of fiber services to their end customers even easier.
2) Fiber services are less expensive in a Lit Building
The initial construction costs absorbed by a carrier or ISP to light a building can be significant and often over $50,000, but naturally once they have invested the money on the infrastructure to light a building, the cost of delivering fiber services to an additional tenant within that building is minor. This is why carriers and ISPs target large multi-tenant buildings to light in the first place, they know their margins after securing a couple of service orders within each lit building become extremely high. In turn, these high margins allow them to offer highly discounted pricing to perspective customers and increasingly this is what they are doing.
USA Voice & Data is seeing more and more carriers and ISPs begin to “play a numbers game” within Lit Buildings, securing more customers within a Lit Building by offering them highly discounted pricing and making less money on each individual customer but increasing overall revenue and reducing their risk and the financial impact of losing any single client to a competitor. COGENT has being offering highly discounted lit building pricing on their 100MB fiber internet connections for years, but they are now being joined by every other telecom carrier and ISP. Yes COGENT pricing is finally being challenged. For you as a potential customer this is great news, and at the same time this makes it all the more important for you to know which carriers and ISPs either have your building lit themselves or have a peering relationship with providers who do. Only by knowing the full extent of the competition within your building can you hope to get the very best pricing for your fiber services.
3) Fiber services are quicker to implement in a Lit Building
If you were to order fiber services to a building that was not lit most carriers or ISPs would give you an estimated implementation timeframe of 90 – 120 days and furthermore they would tell you that there was no guarantee that services could be delivered within this timeframe. USA Voice & Data have seen some implementations actually take over 6 months due to not only the construction required but also the permitting required by the local authorities. That said we are beginning to see the average new fiber install timeframes decrease although this timeframe is still a lengthy one compared to T1 based service deliveries.
In contrast lots of carriers and ISPs tout implementation timeframes for services for lit buildings tenants within the 60 – 90 days and some even under 30 days. Naturally this shorter install timeframe can really make a difference for businesses that need services turned up in a hurry.
4) How can I find out if my building is lit and if so by whom?
This is where USA Voice & Data can help you. As independent brokers we have access to the lit building lists and lit building pricing for each and every carrier and ISP.
Do you need help finding our if you are in a lit building?
Save time and money by speaking with one of our expert telecom advisors today.
USA Voice & Data promise not only to help you understand your full choice of fiber provider options we also guarantee to get you the most highly discounted pricing available.
