Dark fiber in Riga: your own strand of glass

CloudHosting offers both over the same routes in Riga: dark fiber is a raw strand of glass with no active equipment on it, while a lit service runs on our DWDM equipment. With dark fiber you light the strand with your own optics, so protocols, encryption and speeds are entirely your decision, and nothing on the path is shared or inspected. With a lit service we operate the optics and hand you an Ethernet port at each end. Choose dark if your team runs its own network gear and wants full control, choose lit if you want a working channel without maintaining transceivers. The choice is about who manages the equipment, not where the link can go.

CloudHosting offers dark fiber along the routes we serve in the Riga metro area, meaning the city itself and the surrounding districts. Coverage is always confirmed per address, because the last section into a building matters as much as the main route, which is why no coverage list is published. Send us the two endpoints, ideally with exact street addresses, and we check the route and survey both buildings. Within a few days you get a clear answer on feasibility, followed by a quote with a monthly price and repair terms. One endpoint can also be our data centre in Riga if you want the link to land next to your equipment.

CloudHosting rents you the glass, not bandwidth, so a dark fiber pair carries whatever your optics at the two ends can push. When you need more capacity, you replace or add transceivers on your own equipment, and the contract with us stays exactly the same. With DWDM a single pair carries many independent wavelengths at once, each running its own service. There is no per-megabit billing and no shaping on our side, since no equipment of ours sits in the path of a dark strand. Plan your optics budget around the distance between the endpoints, as longer routes need suitable modules.

CloudHosting sets the repair times for a fiber link in the contract, because cuts are rare but do happen, usually during construction work. The OTDR measurements and route documentation made at delivery help locate a fault quickly. Plan for the impact honestly: on a single route the link is down until the splice is finished, within the agreed repair window. If the connection is critical, order a second, physically separate route from the start, so one dig never takes down both paths at once. Both routes can be planned in the same route check, so their separation is designed in rather than hoped for.

CloudHosting prices every dark fiber link from its route, as one fixed monthly price, so there is no public price list. The main factors are the length of the path and the buildings at each end, since entries and in-building sections take different amounts of work. The offer states the monthly price together with the repair terms written into the contract, so the recurring cost is known before you decide. To get numbers, send the two endpoints through the contact page or write to support. We survey the route before you sign anything, so you commit only after the path and the price are confirmed. Prices are quoted without VAT.

CloudHosting can land one end of the link in its Tier 3+ data centre at Bērzaunes iela 1 in Riga, and this is one of the most common setups: the other end stays in your office or another site. Inside the facility your fiber arrives next to your servers, colocated equipment and backups, so traffic between office and infrastructure never crosses the public internet. The data centre is carrier-neutral, so on site you can also order cross-connects to the carriers present in the building, useful when you buy transit or other services from several operators. Tell us during the route check that the data centre is an endpoint and we plan the termination accordingly.

CloudHosting provides only the glass of a dark fiber link, so yes: your equipment lights the fiber at both ends, in practice switches or routers with optical modules suited to the length of the route. You choose the protocols and the encryption, and you also take on monitoring the link and replacing modules when they fail. That is a good trade for teams with network engineers who want nothing between their two sites. If nobody on your side wants to deal with optics, order a lit service instead: we run it on our DWDM equipment and you simply get an Ethernet port at each end.

CloudHosting uses DWDM, dense wavelength division multiplexing, to carry many independent wavelengths over one fiber pair at the same time, each working as a separate channel. It helps in two cases. First, when one route has to carry several logically separated channels, for example for different systems. Second, when capacity must grow step by step without rebuilding the route: a new wavelength is added and the existing channels keep running. If you do not want to maintain such equipment yourself, order a lit channel on our DWDM and we look after the optics. If one link with your own optics is enough, you can do without DWDM.

CloudHosting delivers every fiber link in the same three steps: route check, offer and contract, then splicing and an end-to-end OTDR test. First we verify the path and survey both buildings, so the offer is based on a route that actually exists. After you accept, the fiber is spliced along the route and into your premises. The finished link is measured end to end with an OTDR, and you receive the report together with a route plan, showing the quality of every splice and the length of the path. That documentation stays useful later for repairs and for planning your optics. From handover the link is covered by the repair terms in your contract.