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"This is truly a ‘next
gen building’," said Matthew T. Spathas, partner of SENTRE Partners,
whose firm teamed up with GE Asset Management in November of last year
to purchase the building. A world class team has been working on
this "paradigm changing" concept.....which was initially launched by
SENTRE Partners, Bandwidth Now, and Intel, with input from Corning and
Cisco.
"Our concept is really simple...provide 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, One America Plaza 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.
"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."
The entire building (34 floors and all 4 levels of below grade parking)
is Wi-Fi (wireless) enabled. Use of the building Wi-Fi network is
offered at no charge to One America Plaza tenants, guests, and visitors.
"We believe this is the first
building in the US to deploy wireless in every square inch of the
building and parking garage. 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.
Additionally,
tenants of One America Plaza can enjoy "wired" plug-and-play
connectivity to the Internet, which will burst up to 100 Mbps, for only
$250 per month. This is approximately 60 times faster and 1/5th
the cost of a typical T1 (1.54 Mbps) connection.
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.
"Our tenants, their clients, and visitors won’t be crawling behind
credenzas looking for a dial up connection", adds Rob Jones, building
manager at One America Plaza.
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. "Our
engineers will carry web tablets and Pocket PC’s, opening and closing
tenant work orders on the spot. No more forms in triplicate," says
lead building engineer Reese Layton. "We will also use the
wireless infrastructure in the deployment of wireless web enabled
security cameras and voice over IP communication," adds Layton.
SENTRE Partners is a San Diego based real estate investment and services
company who manages, leases, and/or owns assets in excess of $500
million. SENTRE’s value added strategy is simple...putting purpose and
technology into real estate. For more information, visit
www.sentre.com.
*CRE Partners is not responsible for the content, validity,
technical accuracy or other claims or information contained in this
article. Feature Articles are often authored by outside sources
and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of CRE Partners.
Further, publication of articles in the CRE Partners Newsletter and/or
web site is not meant to represent, promote, or endorse any company,
brand, product or solution.
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