It’s becoming increasingly clear that an essential component of ICT has shifted from de facto outsourcing back to strategic insourcing. By that I am referring to metro dark fibre, which has begun to replace lit network services with industry leaders and innovators.
Why the mandate?
- Exponential data generation. The world generated ~180 zettabytes of data in 2025 according to IDC’s most recent Global DataSphere Forecast. In fact, other industry research has indicated that in the last 5 years, the CAGR has tripled; surprising even the most bullish of predictions. With the pervasive adoption of AI and ongoing digitisation, data growth is not slowing.
- The race to remain competitive. At a minimum, most IT and business leaders are aggressively implementing AI strategies and technologies to drive productivity optimisations and top-line business value. But in many instances, they are also embarking upon initiatives to reengineer internal/external value chains and invent new business models.
- Connectivity has become the IT bottleneck for businesses. The prevalence of hyperscalers and edge infrastructure, coupled with the ubiquity of increasingly powerful endpoint devices, means that compute is typically no longer the IT constraint; it is now the network.
Why metro dark fibre?
Network architectures and infrastructure have always been a vital element of the digital technology stack, but in recent times, these have become a predominant focus. The capabilities of various metro lit solutions – i.e. private leased lines, metro ethernet, MPLS, etc – even with an SD-WAN overlay, are not equal to the current demands of transmitting massive amounts of data, let alone in a manner which meets the low-latency expectations of today’s workloads/workflows with real-time requirements.
The trend towards leveraging metro dark fibre connectivity has been well underway for hyperscalers, supercloud operators, data centre providers and several industry sectors such as media & entertainment, financial services and healthcare. But recently, a broader range of enterprises have begun embracing dark fibre solutions to meet the high demands of their modern-day connectivity requirements.
While adopters of dark fibre need to undertake the operational responsibilities of the unlit transmission medium, dark fibre offers benefits of heighten levels of bandwidth scalability, control, security and performance that are unmatched by traditional lit services.
To reiterate the assertion I started with, it’s becoming increasingly clear that an essential component of ICT has shifted from de facto outsourcing back to strategic insourcing. Put another way, dark fibre has become the preferred approach over lit services for organizations requiring high-capacity, high-performance and resilient network infrastructure.
Why Xenith Infrastructure Group?
Xenith IG believes we set the standard for designing, building and operating mission-critical metro dark fibre connectivity. Here are some of the reasons why:
- We design and build dedicated and diverse metro paths that have zero tolerance for any end-to-end single points of failures
- 100% of our infrastructure – pit/pipe/conduits – are wholly owned, to avoid the common practice of share-ducting or 3rd party intermediaries
- Near 100% of our network is underground
- Our dark fibre cables are laid in 5 km lengths to minimize joints and fibre loss
- We deploy only the highest quality, bend-insensitive, and low-loss dark fibre cables
We currently operate in 7 key APAC markets – Hong Kong, Jakarta, Johor Bahru, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Singapore and Sydney. Furthermore, we are the only dark fibre provider offering a single contract across these complex regions.
Who are our customers?
We are a trusted partner to companies that require network infrastructure with extreme scalability, exceptional resiliency and critical security. Among these include:
- The foremost global infrastructure hyperscalers, global/local data center providers, and leading over-the-top (OTT) vendors
- Global edge-native superclouds, as well as worldwide technology and cybersecurity providers
- Top electronic trading firms, one of APAC’s largest e-commerce and digital payment platforms, and a number of large public and private banks
We are also leveraged by leading global, regional and local telecommunication companies for their own connectivity backbone, or in instances where they don’t have their own dark fibre infrastructure to service their customers.