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unaware of our method of fiber deployment.
The benefit was that they negotiated a great
bulk rate, with a reputable company with 25
years in the business.
Onsite Experience/Lessons Learned
What was the biggest challenge?
Russell Bell: Working with the unions. Since we
didn’t have the option to pull our own cable,
many of the drops were pulled in an incorrect
manner, causing many of the drops to fail
their light testing. The fix was to replace and
resplice these faulty drops.
What was the biggest success?
Russell Bell: Calix has been an outstanding
product. It offers the ability to remote activate/deactivate
any service and adjust bandwidth
usage for any customer. These ONTs
will also alert us of power failures, battery
backup failures and signal issues. It’s a very
stable system with great customer support.
Dean Geibel: I think it’s the fact that it provides one-stop shopping
for our residents. If there is a problem, it’s one phone
call. There’s no finger-pointing between different people.
BroadStar provides everything, and their service is excellent.
It’s nice that they take care of the whole ball of wax.
Nationwide
Installation
Services
Since 1996
Speed Wire is a premier provider of technology
installation services. We install wired and wireless
broadband internet access infrastructure for
residential and business communities. Some of the
Nation’s largest CLEC’s, ILEC’s, and Fortune 500
Companies contract Speed Wire’s field services team
for installations, upgrades, and deployment services.
Providing installation and support for
Copper & Fiber Structured Cabling
Wireless Technologies (Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, PtoP)
Site Surveys • Nationwide Roll Outs
Project Design • Project Management
2009 Broadband Summit • Booth 902
Contact Kevin Donnelly, President
516-945-6885
kdonnelly@speedwireinc.com
www.speedwireinc.com
249-50 Jericho Turnpike • Floral Park, NY 11001
How has the network affected life at the community? How has it
helped reposition the community?
Russell Bell: Because we chose Dish Network’s QAM solution
for the cable TV upgrade, residents have the option to
choose a wide variety of ethnic programming not offered by
other providers. Since this property has a very high Korean
population, these kinds of custom programming packages
have been well received. We also offer a South Asian package,
Japanese, Spanish and others.
I would also note that for Internet, we offer more bandwidth
than the incumbent, as well as unlimited, full-featured
phone service, for less cost.
What would you say to owners who want to deploy a similar network?
What issues should they consider before they get started?
Russell Bell: Try to avoid unions. For BroadStar, unions add
about 75 percent to the cost of any job, even when we pay
our in-house people prevailing wages. Developers should
negotiate, up front, their ability to outsource certain parts
of their construction, or at least the communications portion,
to union-approved subcontractors, so that you’re not
beholden solely to the union alone.
Dean Geibel: As in any business decision, you’re looking at value
– what does it cost to provide these services, versus what it
would cost if you went to a competitor, or if you broke it
up into different systems. You need to consider what another
provider might offer, and whether you would get the
same types of services, as well as whether all these services
are necessary.
In a building like Trump Plaza, it is an absolute necessity.
In a smaller or less prestigious building, you might be
able to get away with not providing the best of everything,
but I think doing so is money well spent, because people
are more and more savvy about their technology choices
these days. BBP
BOUND EDGE
28 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | April 2009