County governments can have a flexible, secure, and controlled telecommunications network to support their municipal IT needs if they acquire dark fiber, technology officials said Tuesday at a National Association of Counties conference in Washington, D.C.

During a session designed for county chief information officers, panelists discussed the potential benefits and challenges of municipally owned dark fiber—a term that refers to unused fiberoptic infrastructure, which can be purchased or leased to create private networks—including its potential to support equal access to broadband and network security, but also its high up-front cost.