Fiber Success in Atlanta

Source: DIGITAL HOME Blogs
Publication date: 2007-06-22

By Brad Grimes

In our March/April issue, we did a story on called "Welcome to Wiredville" about connected communities - new-home developments with fiber-optic networks.

The cover photo was of a gorgeous community near Atlanta called Tributary at New Manchester, which, by circumstance, we were unable to talk about in the story itself. (Tributary is a Connexion Technologies community, and although we were able to speak to other Connexion community developers, we weren't able to hook up with Tributary. Still, the photos were so stunning that we published them and identified Tributary as a real-world fiber development.)

This week I'm able to rectify the situation. Here at the Southern Builder Show in Atlanta, which is co-located with TecHome Builder Expo, Rick Mildner, CEO of Douglasville Development LLC, which is building out Tributary, gave an excellent talk on the community's fiber-to-the-home initiative. Here are some of the highlights:

Pricing. Because triple-play services (phone, TV, Internet) came as part of the fiber network and were covered by mandatory HOA fees, Rick said it was important that he be able to offer all three services for the same price as any two services from legacy providers. Still, the price and the service have to be reliable, too, because the mandatory nature of the HOA charge could turn off some buyers. "'Mandatory' is a problem among Gen-X buyers," Mildner said. "They don't like being told how things will be."

Legacy providers. Mildner said that in the beginning, Douglasville was in negotiations with legacy service providers (BellSouth, Comcast, etc.) to deliver triple-play services to the homes, "But I got fed up dealing with the legacy characters." After he signed on with Connexion Technologies, the legacy providers came back to him and sweetened their deals, but it was too late.

Still, incumbent telco and cable providers insisted on laying cable in Tributary's first easement so that home buyers could, in theory, choose their services instead of the developer's (even though homeowners would still have to pay the HOA fee). "The cable company was confident that their name was so strong [they'd get subscribers]," Mildner said. They didn't. Not one. And therefore in subsequent sections of the development the telco and cable providers stopped laying their own cables.

Working with builders. Mildner emphasized how important it is for the developer and builder to communicate clearly the requirements for delivering the fiber-based services to home buyers. Soon after one home buyer moved into his new home, he called Mildner and complained that the builder only installed a handful of video/telephone/network ports throughout the home. Shocked, Mildner called the builder himself to ask about the situation. The builder's reply to Mildner? "He told me, 'Well that's what I have in my house.'"

Performance. After home buyers move in, they will (and do) call the developer with complaints over system performance - even when they have no reason to. Mildner said one homeowner dropped him an e-mail asking why his Internet conection was down from 1am to 4am one morning, despite the fact that the developer sent out repeated warnings that it would take that part of the network down to upgrade equipment. Mildner easked why the homeowner whether he was online in the middle of the night. Turns out he wasn't, but he has a software program that monitors his Web connection around the clock.

Mildner says performance issues are under control. Phone service is virtually problem-free; TV service has suffered just a few outages, but never community-wide; and while Internet outages happen from time to time, they're usually caused by problems that are outside the community's network.

Overall, Mildner was quick to point out that he's no techie, but he said the fiber network was almost a no-brainer for Tributary. New home buyers expect technology in their homes, he said, and the fiber services make the development stand out as cutting-edge in the Atlanta market.