 Bandwidth Now and SENTRE Partners announced today that the Pacific Center will be the next "next gen" building in San Diego.
"We continue to define a ?next gen building?," said Matthew T. Spathas, CEO of Bandwidth Now and partner of SENTRE Partners, who?s firm teamed up with GE Asset Management to acquire building. A world class team has been working on this "paradigm changing" concept ....which was initially launched by SENTRE, Bandwidth Now, and Intel, with input from Corning and Cisco.
"Our concept is really simple ...provide tenants bandwidth as the 4th utility and Wi-Fi (wireless internet) as an amenity," says Spathas. "By installing a common, agnostic network, called a ?Building Optical Network? (BON) which is paid for and owned by the building owner, Koll Center can deliver up to gigabit network speeds at a fraction of the cost. Additionally, and as important, Wi-Fi will be provided throughout the entire building as an amenity," adds Spathas.
First National Bank will obtain Intel? CentrinoTM mobile technology certification. Centrino is Intel?s technology designed specifically for mobile computing with integrated wireless LAN capability and breakthrough mobile performance.
Bandwidth Now and SENTRE are exploring a host of other new services to provide its tenants including video conferencing to the PC, Managed IP Telephony and Managed IT Services in an effort to increase tenant productivity and drive down tenant IT costs.
"The real estate industry needs to help set the agenda," Spathas says. "This is really no different than the move from kerosene to electricity or stairs to elevators. Owners did not rely on third parties to pay for, install, and own the electrical network or the elevator system. We would be crazy to let a third party own this essential building infrastructure. Optical wires and switches should be treated like electrical wires and the transformer…owned by the building, managed by a third party for the benefit of our tenants. Bandwidth is purchased in bulk off the bandwidth grid in the same manner power is purchased off the power grid."
Tenants will enjoy "wired" plug and play connectivity to the Internet which will burst up to 15 Mbps for only $250 per month. This is approximately 10 times faster and 1/5th the cost of a typical T-1 (1.5 Mbps) connection. Additionally, the entire building (21 floors will be Wi-Fi (wireless) enabled. Wi-Fi use will be offered at no charge to Koll Center tenants, guests, and visitors. "We believe this is the second building in the US to deploy wireless in every square inch of the building (One America Plaza was the first). We have moved from the concept of ?Hot Spot? to ?Hot Building?. Our tenants thought free Wi-Fi was cool in the public places, but they really wanted it in their office space," Spathas added.
Utilizing the deployment, tenants, guests, and visitors will be able to turn on a laptop, PDA or web tablet and immediately be on the net. If you can get on the net, you likely can get on your network. Tenants, their clients, and visitors won?t be crawling behind credenzas looking for a dial up connection.
Making the system even more unique, SENTRE will deploy numerous back end uses to better serve its tenants. One example includes a web based work order system, utilizing the wireless infrastructure. Building engineers will carry web tablets and Pocket PC?s, opening and closing tenant work orders on the spot.
SENTRE Partners is a San Diego based real estate investment and services company who manages, leases, and / or owns assets in excess of $750 million. SENTRE?s value added strategy is simple ...putting purpose and technology into real estate.
San Diego based Bandwidth Now, a market leader in Next Gen building networks in the US and has deployed over 6 million square feet of next gen buildings in San Diego, Los Angeles and Phoenix. |
