Curtis Salgado is a media darling these days, having married the high-tech with the high-rise: He’s offering the Internet as an amenity for renters. We called to ask about it.
“I can’t talk,” he tells us breathlessly after leaving us on hold for 10 minutes. “I’ve got ABC national news and the New York Times doing stories on me. I’ll send you a packet.”
Salgado, a New York property manager, claims the apartment building he leases in Manhattan’s hip East Village is the world’s first to offer tenants high-speed Internet access via T-1 cable. The cable setup enables renters to access the Internet some 40 or 50 times faster than most commercial modems.
For the privilege, tenants pay about $85 a month to their Internet service provider (ISP), plus higher rents than people in neighboring buildings, according to Salgado’s assistant.
Salgado plans to offer the service in more of the buildings he leases, and predicts 20,000 to 25,000 New York apartment dwellers will live in buildings with T-1 cable in the next three years.
Which makes us wonder: Is the Internet the apartment amenity for the next millennium?
“Absolutely,” says Albert J. Caputo Jr., vice president of Habitat Co. “We are in the exploratory stages, but we think that there’s a fair amount of applicability, particularly for some of our tenants in downtown buildings.”
Downtown dwellers fit the demographic profile of Internet users, Caputo says, and the convenience of online services meshes with Habitat’s goal of providing an atmosphere that’s “as simple and effortless as possible.”
In addition to Internet access, some possibilities under consideration are on-line banking and links to grocery stores and other commercial sites in apartment complexes.
Habitat Co. is looking at the entire range of access options, including phone, cable and ISDN lines. ISDN, which stands for Integrated Services Digital Network, moves data about four times faster than the typical phone with a 28.8 kbps modem.
The main issue with ISDN is cost–some say the acronym stands for “I’m Spending Dollars Now” because of the higher-than-usual fees for line installation, monthly phone and Internet connection service, and special equipment needs.
That hasn’t stopped some companies such as Michigan-based Village Green Cos., which manages 26,000 apartments around Chicago and the Midwest, from pursuing a plan to install ISDN into apartments that it builds.
“We’re going to offer Internet access for the same reason we build a 7,000-square-foot clubhouse,” says Tim Smith, director of corporate communications. “Many of our tenants are not traditional renters–they can afford to buy a house but choose to rent–and they are demanding new levels of service and amenities.”
While regular phone access will suit most apartment dwellers looking for occasional surfing and e-mail, landlords like Salgado recognize that there is a niche market waiting to be tapped. Some people just have a need for speed.
“Any landlord wiring his building for Internet access at high speed is a person that wants to keep his or her tenants happy,” says James C. Knapp, chairman of Kalamazoo, Mich-based I/NET Inc., which develops Internet products. “With newer modems or cable modems potentially running five to seven times faster than T-1 (cable), the more speed the better.”
“The PC’s disk and operating system are hundreds of times faster than the fastest telecom speeds available to end users, so that is not a concern–especially in an apartment building where the T-1 may be shared by hundreds of users,” Knapp adds.
Knapp makes several excellent points, particularly the one about sharing cable with other users. Cable modems will offer speed, but there are limitations. As users log on and share the bandwidth, the speed decreases.
The other issue that Gregory Salgado and his amazing Internet apartments reminds us of is this: high-speed access–like so much of the Internet–may be overkill for Joe Sixbyte. Consider: Cable modems aren’t widely available today and are likely to cost about $500 initially. You’ll probably have to lease it from your cable company as part of the $30-$50 fee they’ll charge you for cable Internet access. (That’s on top of your regular monthly bill.)
And remember, connecting to the Web is only as fast as the slowest link. If you connect to a Web site with a slow server or pokey modem, your own mega-fast modem setup may move with all the speed of a 14.4kbps (or slower) modem.
So if a future landlord tries to lure you into a pricey apartment with a pitch about his super-dooper, high-speed-Internet-access rental unit, you may want to think twice. The cash you save by using a regular old analog phone line and a $100 modem might make a nice down payment on a condo.
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Don Hunt and Brian Edwards write about technology related to buying, renting and fixing homes. They can be reached via e-mail at hitekhome@aol.com, or hitekhome@iserv.net, or you can write to them: The High-Tech Home, Chicago Tribune, Your Place section, 435 N. Michigan Ave. 4th Floor, Chicago, Ill, 60611.
