Building owners seek tele-convergence

The need for bandwidth space for voice and data transfer has been increasing despite the recent economic slowdown, telecom experts say.

And it’s not just about telephones any more. It’s about the convergence of wireless, data and voice in your office.

It adds up to a lot more choice for consumers.

Group Telecom is one of the companies offering a package of voice and data services to customers over its own network.

It takes its 720-fibre optical cable to the telecommunications room in a building’s basement, and runs cable up the risers to customers’ offices, says Sarah Berlett, the company’s western regional marketing director.

Her company has 409,000 kilometres of fibre between St. John’s, Nfld. and Victoria, B.C., with a presence in 2,500 buildings.

Despite being partly owned by Shaw, GT’s fibre lines are competing with Shaw’s Big Pipe backbone subsidiary.

Demand for bandwidth isn’t going to go down, so there’s not really an over-supply in the market, Berlett says, regardless of how big the numbers seem at first.

Phone companies gain access to buildings by legal agreements with landlords.

Inside the buildings, individual customers still have choice as the CRTC doesn’t allow exclusive deals with landlords for building access, she says.

A large landlord company might have a preferred provider. “They can sit down with a new tenant and say, ‘this is the rent, this is the loading dock and we do have a preferred provider,’ ” she says. “But they can’t force it.”

At Shift Networks Inc., CEO Trent Johnsen says progressive landlords want high-speed access in their buildings.

Johnsen describes his Calgary company as “agnostic in the street,” meaning it uses any large fibre carrier to buildings it serves, whether GT, Sprint or Telus.

With its own switch in the telecommunications room, “. . . we bring the capacity and functionality of the central office right into the building.”

“Trillions (of dollars) have been spent on putting fibre into the ground, but it’s still the ‘last 100 metres’ story,” Johnsen adds.

Shift is serving its first building and expects to be up to five by the end of the second quarter. Plans call for a total of 50 within about a year.

Convergence and change also ring a bell at Telus, Alberta’s historical phone company now based in Burnaby, B.C.

It used to be just a telco, but grew into a world-class data and Internet hosting provider, says Mario Mannella, vice-president of marketing for the business solutions division.

Mannella’s division focuses on small and medium-sized businesses, offering several degrees of service models in a market where customers want flexibility.

Telus has a large presence in Alberta and B.C., with almost a century of history. In Eastern and Central Canada, it’s a competing carrier.

Telus has just completed a national fibre Internet protocol backbone, and laid 200 kms of fibre in downtown Toronto. “The fibre ring gives us a nice revenue footprint. It hits something like 87 per cent of the top revenue-generating buildings in Toronto,” says Mannella.

The company isn’t engaging in long-distance price wars in the East. It’s offering data and Internet protocol packages, including managing applications, with its phone service.

Basic network and phone service is a start, and Telus wants to leverage that. He says Telus can provide applications for $120 per seat per month that would cost $5 million to $10 million to develop, counting the servers, software and the experts to knit them together – not to mention one to three years in time.

* * * * * *

Residential landlord Boardwalk Equities Inc. has agreed to buy a 3,000-unit portfolio in Montreal, with more than three million sq. ft. of rentable space.

The $180-million deal should close at the end of April, the Calgary-based company says.

Boardwalk owns more than 200 properties totalling more than 25,900 units and 21 million sq. ft. of rentable space. Its holdings are mostly in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario.

* * * * * *

The seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts in Canada increased 10.9 per cent in March to 199,800 units from 180,100 units in February, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).

Urban single starts were up 3.4 per cent to an annual rate of 103,200 units in March from 99,800 in February while urban multiple starts rose 27 per cent to an annual rate of 76,600 units from 60,300.

Estimated rural starts remained at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 20,000 units.

“The residential construction industry is responding to strong demand for new housing due to low mortgage rates, and an improving economy,” said Michel Laurence, Chief Economist at CMHC’s Market Analysis Centre.

“In fact, the new home market is taking its cue from the resale home market, which has been very active over the last several months. Faced with sellers’ market conditions (where buyers out-number sellers providing the latter with added leverage) in the resale home market in many urban areas, buyers are diverting their attention toward the new home market.”

* * * * * *

O&Y REIT has completed its acquisition of a half interest in the 404,000-sq.-ft. Canadian Western Bank and the 182,000-sq.-ft. Enbridge Tower office buildings in Edmonton.

O&Y Real Estate Investment Trust owns 18 high-quality multi-tenant and government office buildings totalling 4.5 million sq. ft., and an indirect interest in First Canadian Place, a 2.7-million sq. ft., 72-storey complex in downtown Toronto.

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04/18/02 Building owners seek tele-convergence Murdoch Macleod Consumers gaining much more choice, columnist says

The need for bandwidth space for voice and data transfer has been increasing despite the recent economic slowdown, telecom experts say.

And it’s not just about telephones any more. It’s about the convergence of wireless, data and voice in your office.

It adds up to a lot more choice for consumers.

Group Telecom is one of the companies offering a package of voice and data services to customers over its own network.

It takes its 720-fibre optical cable to the telecommunications room in a building’s basement, and runs cable up the risers to customers’ offices, says Sarah Berlett, the company’s western regional marketing director.

Her company has 409,000 kilometres of fibre between St. John’s, Nfld. and Victoria, B.C., with a presence in 2,500 buildings.

Despite being partly owned by Shaw, GT’s fibre lines are competing with Shaw’s Big Pipe backbone subsidiary.

Demand for bandwidth isn’t going to go down, so there’s not really an over-supply in the market, Berlett says, regardless of how big the numbers seem at first.

Phone companies gain access to buildings by legal agreements with landlords.

Inside the buildings, individual customers still have choice as the CRTC doesn’t allow exclusive deals with landlords for building access, she says.

A large landlord company might have a preferred provider. “They can sit down with a new tenant and say, ‘this is the rent, this is the loading dock and we do have a preferred provider,’ ” she says. “But they can’t force it.”

At Shift Networks Inc., CEO Trent Johnsen says progressive landlords want high-speed access in their buildings.

Johnsen describes his Calgary company as “agnostic in the street,” meaning it uses any large fibre carrier to buildings it serves, whether GT, Sprint or Telus.

With its own switch in the telecommunications room, “. . . we bring the capacity and functionality of the central office right into the building.”

“Trillions (of dollars) have been spent on putting fibre into the ground, but it’s still the ‘last 100 metres’ story,” Johnsen adds.

Shift is serving its first building and expects to be up to five by the end of the second quarter. Plans call for a total of 50 within about a year.

Convergence and change also ring a bell at Telus, Alberta’s historical phone company now based in Burnaby, B.C.

It used to be just a telco, but grew into a world-class data and Internet hosting provider, says Mario Mannella, vice-president of marketing for the business solutions division.

Mannella’s division focuses on small and medium-sized businesses, offering several degrees of service models in a market where customers want flexibility.

Telus has a large presence in Alberta and B.C., with almost a century of history. In Eastern and Central Canada, it’s a competing carrier.

Telus has just completed a national fibre Internet protocol backbone, and laid 200 kms of fibre in downtown Toronto. “The fibre ring gives us a nice revenue footprint. It hits something like 87 per cent of the top revenue-generating buildings in Toronto,” says Mannella.

The company isn’t engaging in long-distance price wars in the East. It’s offering data and Internet protocol packages, including managing applications, with its phone service.

Basic network and phone service is a start, and Telus wants to leverage that. He says Telus can provide applications for $120 per seat per month that would cost $5 million to $10 million to develop, counting the servers, software and the experts to knit them together – not to mention one to three years in time.

* * * * * *

Residential landlord Boardwalk Equities Inc. has agreed to buy a 3,000-unit portfolio in Montreal, with more than three million sq. ft. of rentable space.

The $180-million deal should close at the end of April, the Calgary-based company says.

Boardwalk owns more than 200 properties totalling more than 25,900 units and 21 million sq. ft. of rentable space. Its holdings are mostly in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario.

* * * * * *

The seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts in Canada increased 10.9 per cent in March to 199,800 units from 180,100 units in February, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).

Urban single starts were up 3.4 per cent to an annual rate of 103,200 units in March from 99,800 in February while urban multiple starts rose 27 per cent to an annual rate of 76,600 units from 60,300.

Estimated rural starts remained at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 20,000 units.

“The residential construction industry is responding to strong demand for new housing due to low mortgage rates, and an improving economy,” said Michel Laurence, Chief Economist at CMHC’s Market Analysis Centre.

“In fact, the new home market is taking its cue from the resale home market, which has been very active over the last several months. Faced with sellers’ market conditions (where buyers out-number sellers providing the latter with added leverage) in the resale home market in many urban areas, buyers are diverting their attention toward the new home market.”

* * * * * *

O&Y REIT has completed its acquisition of a half interest in the 404,000-sq.-ft. Canadian Western Bank and the 182,000-sq.-ft. Enbridge Tower office buildings in Edmonton.

O&Y Real Estate Investment Trust owns 18 high-quality multi-tenant and government office buildings totalling 4.5 million sq. ft., and an indirect interest in First Canadian Place, a 2.7-million sq. ft., 72-storey complex in downtown Toronto.