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River City Internet's BPL service turns heads in St Louis
April 10, 2007
How does 6 mbps symmetrical for $13/month sound?
BPL frees tech support from callsTo be clear, the BPL service provider isn't charging that price to customers --it's the breakdown of what a building owner and condo association are paying per/unit to have all 92 condos in a newly renovated building lit up via BPL.
The provider is Electric Internet, a partnership between River City Internet and big IOU Ameren to deploy BPL --using Telkonet gear --in MDUs (BT, 10/03).
The total bill is about $1,200/month for a network that Electric Internet admits is pretty easy to install and run since it's BPL.
Downtown St Louis is going through a rebirth where old buildings are turned into fancy lofts and condos, explained Trey Goede, and renovations offer a key opportunity to deploy networks.
He's executive vice president of River City and runs Electric Internet.
The 92-unit building --the Ventana Lofts --is the firm's first commercial BPL deployment and was featured on the front page of the business section of the St Louis Post Dispatch Thursday (http://tinyurl.com/29mvso).
That's one of five deployments in and around St Louis the firm has contracts to serve with BPL (the others are described later in this article).
The Ventana, like other such renovations on or near Washington Ave, is attracting "a pretty trendy group" --the kind of people that demand decent broadband.
Electric Internet ran fiber to the building and did some market research to see whether deploying Ethernet to offer faster tiers was called for.
The firm found some 20% of residents are likely to sign up for either a 10 mbps symmetrical service for $29/month or 100 mbps symmetrical for $99/month.
Having fiber made those tiers possible --a luxury that's out of reach at some of the firm's planned deployments.
Fiber might cost $4,000 to light up if it's been deployed to the building by a local fiber firm, noted Goede, and that happens sometimes as downtown buildings are renovated.
In deployments where fiber is within a couple blocks, getting it to a building might cost $25,000-$40,000.
Developers are spending lots of money to create apartments in downtown St Louis "and if I bring fiber into the building, that's a technology solution that's going to play well into the future."
Higher tiers bring profitDuring the visit to the Ventana by the Post Dispatch reporter, "we just knocked on a door and the guy happens to work for a California company" as a network administrator who does lots of his work at home, said Goede.
Such tele-workers may have their internet service paid for by their employers and Goede sees his firm's 10 mbps tier as a competitive with $40-60/month alternatives.
The BPL signal is available to all condos whether the residents want it or not and the $13 cost is rolled into the monthly condo fee.
Of the 14 residents that have moved in at the Ventana thus far, four signed up for higher tiers, said Goede.
Based on phone calls from customers, he now expects to exceed the goal of 20% taking the more expensive service.
The ISP handles every aspect of the networking --including 24-hour tech support --leaving the condo association free from customer service challenges.
The BPL leaves Electric Internet free from headaches, too.
With two deployments under his belt --River City and Ameren previously did a technology pilot with Ameren, Goede called BPL the least time consuming technology he uses.
It requires the least technical support.
"It just works.
"My guys in the cue," the tech support staff, "love it because they don't get any calls on this."
Applications addedA VOIP product will be offered, said Goede, using River City's infrastructure and access to a third-party soft switch that offers very attractive compression.
The compression keeps quality high and used bandwidth low.
Other applications for building owners are available, too, including security cameras, entryway intercom and security control, HVAC monitoring and controls, hallway and elevator signage and telephone service.
The St Louis health department called attention to need for telephone service at the rooftop pool at the Ventana, noted Goede.
"We're establishing a VOIP line as we speak and they will just use a BPL modem" and a VOIP-enabled telephone.
Four more deploymentsJacob Development Group --the St Louis-based developer of the Ventana --has two other properties on Washington Ave that will get fiber and BPL from Electric Internet, said Goede.
"In the next six months both of those properties will be live I believe and we are looking at doing the telephone lines for the elevators" plus front and back entrance access intercoms and security systems.
"The Ventana was quickly put together and we just had to get the rooms lit so we didn't take advantage of all of the BPL applications," Goede admitted.
The quick install started as tenants were first moving in.
"So we missed on some opportunities," but they aren't lost --the Ventana can add applications, he added.
Two other projects are nearing installation, he added, both using T1 as backhaul.
One is an 84-unit apartment complex west of downtown St Louis being developed by the Roberts Companies.
It's a "unique" project because it includes 28 single family homes across the street that will get the fiber-backed BPL service, too.
And Electric Internet will deploy BPL-connected security cameras and a digital video recorder for the apartment building, said Goede.
The other is an assisted living community on about five acres with 600+ rooms in multiple buildings with duplexes and high rises.
The gear is in on that installation and the service is being tested.
Electric Internet can bundle up to four T1 lines --6 mbps total --to meet bandwidth demands, said Goede.
River City has hundreds of commercial T1 customers --a 1.5 mbps connection that some firms may share between 100 employees "and it's more than enough," said Goede.
"Fiber is overkill," he added, except that it opens a revenue stream with high-speed tiers via Ethernet.
Do incumbents care?Goede knows his firm is on the "radar" of the incumbent broadband providers.
How does he know?
River City is an agent for AT&T and was one for SBC for about eight years before the two giants merged in 2005.
Not an exclusive agent, noted Goede, because his firm competes with AT&T, "but we're friendly with management, at least in St Louis, and they know what's going on.
"We've heard from a couple other larger ISPs that we have relationships with across the country as well due to the article," in the Post Dispatch.
Ameren's role is qualityThe IOU has an access BPL trial in Cape Girardeau, Mo that's been running for years but a lack of regulatory certainty in Missouri and Illinois kept the firm from taking BPL access any further, Ameren Project Engineer Cindy Bambini reminded us yesterday.
The utility could probably move ahead as a landlord now but isn't convinced the BPL developer role should be abandoned.
The firm won't risk using the developer model until it knows the states it runs in won't ban utility ownership of BPL as did Texas, California and New York.
Arkansas allowed the developer model and the North Carolina legislator likely to introduce a BPL supports it, too.
Meanwhile, utility customers connect what comes out of their outlets with the electric company and that's one reason Ameren teamed with River City, said Bambini --to ensure the quality of a BPL service meets Ameren's standards.
The contract between Ameren and River City was very carefully crafted, said Bambini, and is highly detailed, said Goede.
Ameren needs regulators to be on board with any access BPL plans the utility might ever make, Bambini stressed, and she's not aware of any proceeding or bill now under consideration.
And the utility is in a rate case right now until June.
Here's the pitchGoede sent us a brochure his firm put together with Ameren.
It borrows a stylized graphic we first saw on the Telkonet website with various devices such as a laptop computer, WiFi hub, security camera and a point of purchase credit card reader connected via BPL modems.
A connected PC is labeled as "building automation system.
"If you are the owner of multiple-dwelling unit (MDUs) facilities (hotels/motels, high-rise or loft-style apartments and/or condos and dorms) or casinos, educational facilities, strip malls or factories, you may want to consider in-building broadband over power lines (IB-BPL) as the high-speed internet access solution for you properties," said the brochure.
To download a PDF version of the brochure follow this link: http://tinyurl.com/2nfcwx.