Tips For Wholesale Buyers of European Long Haul Wavelengths

There is strong demand for wavelengths connecting Europe's key routes like London/Paris, Amsterdam/London, Amsterdam/Frankfurt, Frankfurt/Paris, Paris/Marseille, Zurich/Frankfurt, Milano/Marseille, Madrid/Paris, Madrid/Lisbon, etc. Much of this involves African ISPs that come to Europe to peer and buy transit as well as Indian and Asian firms. 

But Europe is different. A 100G wavelength varies from the mid to upper 800 Euros per month to the mid 1500 Euros depending on term, route, physical diversity, latency, etc. Because rates are low focusing on price is a mistake. Don't be transactional like a certain American President. You will save little because prices are already low, but sacrifice a lot in terms of latency, time waiting for price quotes, delivery, uptime, routing options and commercial flexibility. For example, my favorite provider has fast routes for general bandwidth users that are usually 1 to 4 milliseconds lower latency than the rest of the pack. So you can save 80 Euros per month with a cheaper provider, but pay a big latency penalty. The gamers will hate you. 😃 Or you can save those 80 Euros a month (enough for a good meal in central Vienna), but wait 3 months for a 100G delivery and possibly lose your customers that were driving the deal. Not to mention months of lost revenue since my best provider delivers circuits in as little as two to three weeks. Or as happened recently, you can wait 2 months for a long haul spectrum quote and then the provider tells you "sorry, no bid". 😡

If we look at the dominant long haul providers, most, but not all their networks are 2000 era vintage. Sure, fibre doesn't spoil like vegetables. But new ultra-low loss fibre and amplifier huts as well as improved and unique routing offers huge advantages. Cost per bit is lower with new ultra-loss fibre. Replacing old optical amplifier huts prone to outages with new sites spaced farther apart reduces failure rates, lowers network costs and total failures. New routes mean better physical diversity with the ability to tailor to your exact needs. Networks are like beer. Not milk. You can have an American Budweiser or a Czech Pilsner. I assure you there is a real difference. 😆 

So focus on carriers with modern networks, responsive customer service, commercial flexibility, competitive pricing, high uptime, low latency, many routing options and new services such as Layer 1 150G or 200G wavelengths. An important factor distinguishing a mediocre player from the best is whether the provider periodically reviews a customer's services and needs. I have spent much of January and early February in reviews with the customer and carrier representatives of their circuit portfolios. My recent sessions have resulted in lowing latency for many city pairs by over a millisecond by migrating customers to new, state of the art digital highways that enjoy better uptime, but cost not a Euro cent more to the customer.