Best of the ISP-Lists

The Landlord Needs You

Members of the ISP-Cable list talk to an owner of several residential Multiple Tenant Units (MTUs) and describe what that person would need to provide cable Internet service to the tenants.

[September 27, 2001]

On the ISP-Cable list in September, JL queried,

"I am a member of a firm that owns several 300-unit apartment complexes. We have our own satellite uplink; i.e., we own the cable infrastructure. We were thinking about providing cable Internet services to our tenants. My plan is to purchase a T1 or T3 line, get a CMTS unit, and connect it to the Internet line. This should allow anyone in the apartment complex to use a cable modem to access the Internet. My questions are, is this feasible, and if so, are the T1 or T3 router and CMTS unit all I need?"

A number of respondents suggested there's lot more to consider:

[FK offered] "A good analogy would be if someone were to say to you, 'I want to open a restaurant: I have a stove, and there is a grocery store down the street. Is that all I need?' The simplest answer is no, it's not feasible. But there are a number of factors involved. Do you need to break even or to make a profit? Do any of the tenants already have high-speed access: what market share can you expect? What level of service will they expect? There are a lot of questions to keep in mind."

[TD added] "Your plan sounds good, but I'd look at a couple of things. If your plan is to sell access to the properties, then figure a 10 percent to 30 percent take rate. What service level are you looking to offer? Some fellas oversubscribe broadband a hundred to one. How are your properties laid out? Can you deliver a T1 or T3 to one of your properties and then shoot bandwidth wirelessly to an adjacent property?"

[PD agreed] "You need to address many issues; it's not clear if you have or not. I assume that you know of different cable plant requirements for CMTS. You will also need to address the Internet issues, like the selection of a good upstream provider, the Internet upstream access speed, restrictions to the service (dynamic vs. static IP addresses, etc.), and quality of service—especially if someone in your complex is going to use the line for business VPN access, or a SOHO. I would suggest that you spend a little money upfront and get a good cable contractor and a good network engineer in to help out."

CM advised considering alternate options:

"I'd say to wire the building with Ethernet and buy one or more T1s as you need. Use a bandwidth manager to limit the bandwidth hogs. Forget cable; you'd never recover your CMTS cost, and plus, you need your servers and a connection."

RS warned that it just might be too complicated:

"Yes, this is feasible, but no, that's not all you need. You're essentially becoming an ISP. Is the cable plant two-way ready? Does it have the proper amplifiers and has is been tested to support return signals? Do you know how to manage a T1/T3 backbone connection? Do you have Web and e-mail servers to run your clients' e-mail and personal Web pages? Do you have installation and technical support technicians ready to handle customer calls? You can outsource a lot of this. You have the key ingredient: you own the cable infrastructure. Maybe you should find an ISP partner that can install, run, support and manage this for you, then give you a cut of the business."

— End