For the first time since optical fiber for LANs were considered, a bid has come in for optical fiber that equals twisted-pair copper wire. Although the project is large by library industry standards, the economies were not limited to the backbone and the vertical cable runs to connect different floors; it extended even to the horizontal runs to the desktop. The savings are not in the medium (optical fiber continues to be more costly than copper), but in the hardware and building space. Choosing optical fiber over copper means that you do not have to install work-group switches and routers on each floor. Instead, networked devices in a given area are connected by optical fiber to a nearby optical patch panel. Other optical fiber runs connect the individual patch panels to a central network wiring closet. Total square footage for wiring closets is reduced by half.
The outcome will not always be the same, but the experience does suggest that the time has come to obtain bids on both alternatives in larger-buildings, probably those with more than 100,000 net assignable square feet.