[BCTEL]
Steve --
From BCTel's Advanced Communication's page:
bctel.net
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BC TEL has already established its telecommunications leadership through our on-going investment in a more powerful telecommunications infrastructure for core business areas. Now there's necessity to cover new ground. With exponential growth in teleworking and home-based businesses, the demands for advanced technology are no longer confined to the downtown towers.
Working in partnership with local governments and the development
industry, BC TEL Advanced Communications now extends the same business-class service - advanced data, voice and image technology - to leading-edge neighbourhoods beyond the core. A case in point...
From the outside, Greystone Properties' Arbutus Walk community is developing all the trappings of a traditional urban neighbourhood - pedestrian-oriented streets, a mix of shops and homes, quaint architecture, quiet parks and walkways. Yet hidden beneath its turn-of-the-century brick and stone facades are high-tech amenities more appropriate to the turn-of-the-next-century including high-speed
data communications accessibility for every residence, including those home offices.
Located on the old Carling-O'Keefe lands (subsequently known as the Molson Breweries and Twin Pak sites), this former light industrial site is being transformed into a planned community for a thousand people.
The character of the neighbourhood is defined by traditional values by new low-rise exteriors which mimic the original 1912 Carling brewery building, and by leafy streetscapes and pedestrians mews with quaint parks and sidewalk level shops.
First of the community's new projects is The Carlings, twin wood-framed buildings with brick and stonework, mullioned windows, ornamental metal work, and gated entries. The interiors mix hardwood floors, maple cabinetry and stainless steel appliances. Mostly pre-sold and now ready for occupancy, they'll soon be joined by the Ansonia, a six-story concrete building reminiscent of 80-year-old New York Brownstones with their 9-foot ceilings.
Though visually from another era, both projects will be wired for the future, with fibre-optic cabling and category 5 wiring capable of quality, high-speed internet connections. On completion Arbutus Walk should contain 640 total residential units, with off-street, underground parking for cars and information highway access for business-oriented home owners and shopkeepers.
INTERNET SAVVY BUYERS
Rod Wilburn, Greystone spokesperson, says the market was initially defined in typical terms as singles and young professionals. With the addition of category 5 wiring, buyers can be more precisely defined as a mix of home-based consultants, teleworkers, and technology-oriented professionals. "They're computer aware, well educated. They're in tune with e-mail and the internet and they're buying at the forefront of what's available - likely as a stepping stone to their own single family home or a large townhome."
There's an implication in that last statement for the future and for the real estate industry as a whole, not just Greystone. Today's plugged-in condo owner is not going to give up their high-speed access for work in a move to suburban family homes.
In fact, Al Bly, a Telecommunications Engineering Technologist with over 25 years in the phone and data environment, spoke very concisely about the situation at a recent BC TEL Expert Series seminar. He foresees a day in the near future when "the closer you live to a telephone company's Central Office the more your house will be worth." He does point out, of course, that property value can't be measured solely on access to information - but it is becoming an increasingly important factor, of which Greystone is well aware.
COMING THIS FALL
As it happens, Al Bly's statement was referring specifically to a new BC TEL Advanced Communications capability: ADSL (asymmetrical digital subscriber line) now in trial and soon to be introduced in Greater Vancouver, Victoria and some interior locations. ADSL doesn't necessarily require the fibre-optic trunking, but there is an issue of distance - and that all-important real estate location implication. "Essentially ADSL fills a very obvious service need - the internet - with a relatively little pipe up and a big pipe down, exactly right for sending e-mail and page requests upstream, then receiving large files and web pages downstream."
Although the Greystone projects are wired into the fibre backbone (part of an established BC TEL core infrastructure that already links 400 residential and commercial projects with a total of 2000 km of fibre-optic cabling), ADSL can ride on copper wiring. Al Bly points out that "copper may be buried, but it's not dead." In fact copper can carry ADSL at very high speeds, but at a price - not in dollars but distance. The higher the capability, the shorter the loop must be
between a home and the closest BC TEL central office. It's this loop length limit of several kilometers which could one day have a positive affect on the real estate value of the truly wired home.
Still, as the recent agreement between BC TEL and North Vancouver
demonstrates [Smart Streets. p6] the increasing demand for additional
telecommunications infrastructure should never be viewed as a problem, but an opportunity. Just ask Rod Wilburn of Greystone.
Greystone Properties is a real estate development company, owned by 27 BC-based pension funds. Since its start in 1989, the company has constructed over 2,200 homes valued at more than $400 million and requiring 3.2 million hours of construction employment - most in planned projects that mix townhomes, lowrise and highrise buildings. Notable other projects include the 466-unit Wellington Mews and Collingwood Village, an 8 -10year, 2,800 home project.
Al Bly has founded 2 Canadian training companies. Integrated Network
Corporation (1988) targets data engineers, and TST (1996) provides training to sales, marketing and technical support professionals in the enterprise network arena. Al has taught and developed technical programs and consulted to NORTEL, Cisco, Lucent Technologies, Ameritech, Newbridge, BC TEL, SaskTel, EDTEL, Bell South, Sprint United, Texas Instruments and GTE. >>>> |
