The Plot Thickens........!
Competition or collaboration?
CLEARWORKS LIGHTS UP VEGAS WITH FIBER TO THE HOME.
Fiber Optics News, August 2, 1999 v19 i30 pNA
While carriers have just started getting their act together on fiber to the home this summer, developing a specification that will be used as a blueprint for equipment, one company already has 7,000 fiber-to-the-home subscribers (see FON, July 12, 1999.) ClearWorks.net [CLWK] has been successful selling its service to Houston-area residents, and now is opening an office in Las Vegas.
"ClearWorks has been around for two years," says John Diaz, president of ClearWorks Structured Wiring Inc. "We are a publicly traded company, and are leaders in the area of developing fiber to the home."
ClearWorks has 7,000 subscribers in Houston, and expects to be at 21,000 by the end of next year. The company also has plans to expand to San Antonio and Austin by the end of this year.
ClearWorks is aggressively pursuing contracts with land developers in Las Vegas. The company hopes to capture 100,000 subscribers in Las Vegas by the end of 2000.
"We have structured our business so that we can install fiber to the home as quickly and effectively as possible," Diaz says.
ClearWorks.net is divided into four units. The first, ClearWorks.net, manages the other three divisions and works with shareholders. The second, ClearWorks Communications, serves as a media content provider for the fiber-to-the-home service. The third, ClearWorks Structured Wiring, does all of the cabling and maintenance of the fiber optics plant. And the last division, ClearWorks Integration, installs local and wide area networks.
Negotiating with land developers is a key for ClearWorks. Its business model is currently built on deploying fiber to new homes as they are being constructed, not retrofitting old homes with fiber. Consequently, the company must pitch fiber as a communications solution to land developers.
ClearWorks has contracts with the developers of five communities in Houston. The company is getting paid an average of $65 million per contract to install and maintain the fiber, with an average contract length of 20 years.
ClearWorks also must maintain good relations with home builders, and learn to work with them. The company currently has dealings with Centex, Pulte, Royce Homes, Kaufman and Broad, Legacy Homes, Michael Thomas and Village Builders.
"The projected number of subscribers ClearWorks has made for Vegas is way out of control," however, says Brad Bradshaw, director of energy and communications at the Yankee Group, a high-tech consultancy in Boston. "ClearWorks could not do that in a year. They have a lot of competitors doing overbuilds of hybrid coax/fiber in Vegas. Sprint is the local phone company and they are providing DSL. There will be too much competition to reach 100,000."
(Brad Bradshaw, Yankee Group, 617/880-0323; John Diaz, ClearWorks.net, 713/334-2595.) |
