With virtual reality showing up in everything from immersive
video games to high-tech condo sales centers, it will only be a matter of time
before virtual becomes real in Apartment World. The folks at Popular
Mechanics are highlighting a loft in London, where it’s so hard to find a
decent apartment that there’s no way you’ll ever land this one. But only
because it doesn’t actually exist. The oh-so-real virtual tour looks amazingly
authentic. And while still a bit gimmicky now, these kinds of capabilities
raise real and compelling possibilities for apartment owners. How about putting
on a pair of VR glasses, and then giving your East Coast-based prospect a
tour of her next apartment, only in San Francisco? Of course, to do so, you’ll
need as robust an Internet infrastructure in your building as possible, an
issue we’ll look at more closely in Part 2 of our examination of How Much Fiber
is Enough?, coming soon. In the meantime, you can look at Part
1 here.
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Apparently, the FCC Was Serious About All That Net Neutrality Stuff
The big news this week is the FCC’s $100 million fine of
AT&T for “throttling” its customers, which the Washington Post did a good
job covering. Throttling is the practice of limiting subscribers’ download
speeds after they reach a certain data threshold. For AT&T subscribers who
paid for unlimited data, that meant streaming videos and other high bandwidth
content eventually started slowing down. While not exactly the same issue
targeted by the FCC’s net neutrality rule, which dictates that service
providers can’t slow down the streams of one content provider over another, the
FCC’s action on throttling has the same spirit to it: that everyone should be
able to access everything at the same speeds, without service providers getting
in the way. For its part, AT&T said the practice of throttling is
widespread in the industry, and that the FCC knows this. While it’s not a great
defense – everybody else is doing it, so why shouldn't we – it does raise the question of whether
more throttling fines will come. Read the WaPo article here.
Monday, June 15, 2015
MDU Geeks Unite!
Just a quick reminder about the Big News happening here at the the Multifamily Technology 360° blog. With your help, we've garnered enough readers to strike out on our own. So, going forward, we'll be coming at you from our new URL: MDU Geek.com.
You’ll still get all the apartment technology news and commentary you’ve grown accustomed to at Multifamily Technology 360, just at our fabulously geeky new URL: MDU Geek.com.
You can hit us up on Twitter, too via @MDUGeek.
Going forward, our sponsor, InfiniSys, will be taking over the MultifamilyTechnology.com URL, with a nice prominent link to MDU Geek, lest you forget.
But, maybe, just maybe, being one of our readers and therefore prone to a certain nerdy inclination, you've already bookmarked us? We can only hope. MDU Geek on!
Thursday, June 11, 2015
How Much Fiber is Enough? Less Than You Think.
Multifamily Technology 360° Exclusive Guest Post
By Richard Holtz
By Richard Holtz
An interesting thing happened at this spring's Broadband Communities Summit – I found myself having conversations with broadband
proponents about how much fiber you really need to get gigabit service to an
apartment unit.
Turns out, it’s not as much as apartment owners may have
been led to believe.
While the marketing message from both service providers and
amenity-crazed apartment consultants seems to say you absolutely need deep
fiber all the way to the unit, that’s not really the case.
Here’s the secret that many of that those marketers don’t want
you to hear: copper to the unit still actually works just fine. As long as
certain key elements are in place, you can still deliver a gigabit experience
without fiber all the way to the pillow.
A few of those elements include getting fiber to comm room;
making sure the coax cable running between the comm room and the apartment doesn’t
span more than 150 feet; having existing Cat 5e cabling in the walls; and putting
quality gigabit capable switches and electronics in the comm room.
That’s important for a couple of reasons. One, it means that
retrofitting an existing building today can be done more cheaply than you may
have thought, since you may not have to start tearing into the walls, depending
on what’s already there. That’s critical if you’re currently considering buying
a building.
But two, and perhaps more importantly, if you don’t run
fiber all the way to the unit, you can save on the costlier electronics that
fiber demands.
For many of my colleagues, this message may seem heretical.
After all, as a vocal proponent of widespread broadband adoption for most of my
career, an argument against the commonly-accepted industry view that you can
never have too much fiber could be viewed, at best, as a kind of backpedaling,
and at worst, a betrayal to our common goal of broadband for all.
But that’s okay. I’ve never been someone who’s afraid to
speak my mind, even if my views sometimes fly in the face of conventional
wisdom.
The reason I’m doing so now is because I want apartment
owners faced with making these decisions – who have heard nothing but fiber,
fiber, fiber over the last decade -- to know the full range of their options,
and the costs they’ll incur with each.
Basically, there’s no question about the value of deep fiber
going forward. Taking fiber all the way to the unit is going to be your most
future-proof option, for at least the next 20 years, if not more.
But to get gigabit speeds to the unit today, placing fiber
optic electronics in a communications room, and running Cat 5e copper to the
apartments themselves works just fine. In fact, you can get gigabit speeds over
copper in this kind of set up without even breathing hard. You just need to
make sure you have quality switches and electronics within your design. As I
like to say, there are gigabit switches, and then there are gigabit switches.
Do you know which is which?
An added bonus is that with copper, your service providers
are less apt to squabble amongst each other over the different strands they run
their services on, and won’t be able to point fingers at one another when
things don’t work.
Going the copper route also helps owners of existing
buildings do a retrofit at a lower cost point, because they don’t need as many
of the more expensive electronics – the optical devices designed to transmit
signals of light – that they would if they ran fiber all the way to the unit.
That’s another important point to consider, especially given
how fast technology changes. If owners pay – or partner with service providers
to pay – for the latest electronics to be placed inside each of their units
today, they can potentially face costly amortization and depreciation issues
down the road. Basically, the question becomes how do you amortize and
depreciate the electronics fast enough to stay ahead of the curve?
The answer, in some cases, is that you can’t.
Now, as the cost of fiber optic electronics comes down, this
issue will eventually solve itself. And when it does, going with deep fiber all
the way to the unit will be a no-brainer.
But until that happens, owners should know that they have
other, more cost-effective options that will work effectively to get residents
gigabit speeds, without putting undue pressure on their pocketbooks.
No matter what die-hard fiber proponents and their marketers
say.
Richard Holtz is CEO of InfiniSys.
Tuesday, June 09, 2015
Get Your Apartment Geek On!
Okay, we’d be lying if we didn’t say we’re just a little bit excited by this. With the
growing popularity of the Multifamily Technology 360° blog, we’ve hit a
threshold that’s going to allow us to become even more relevant and useful for
you, our loyal readers. Taking a step that makes our inner nerd feel all warm
and fuzzy, we are pleased to unveil our new URL: MDU Geek.com.
From now on, you’ll be getting all the news and commentary
you’ve grown accustomed to at Multifamily Technology 360, just at our hipper,
and yes, geekier, URL (aren’t they one and the same these days?)
And of course,
you can find us on Twitter via @MDUGeek.
For those of you connected to the business side of the
apartment technology amenity space, you’ll still be able to link up with our
sponsor, InfiniSys, at the MultifamilyTechnology.com
URL.
Here’s to all the even geekier apartment technology news to
come!
Thursday, June 04, 2015
This One (Almost) Goes To 11
Just as gigabit speed is becoming a must-have for
apartments, Comcast has upped the ante. The company announced multi-gigabit
speeds, including symmetrical 2 gbps service, coming to the greater Chicagoland
area, according to an announcement posted on MarketWatch. Comcast claims that its
“Gigagbit Pro” product will provide the fastest residential Internet available
in the United States. But, not satisfied just to double the current speed
threshold, Comcast also hinted that up to 10 gbps speeds might be available to
apartment residents soon. The company said it “plans to offer a
multi-gigabit fiber service through its Xfinity Communities program that serves
residents living in multi-dwelling units such as apartment complexes. Comcast
has been delivering multi-gig (up to 10 Gbps) Ethernet service to businesses in
the region since 2011.” So, maybe this one doesn’t really go to 11, yet. But it might go to 10, soon.
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