High Fiber Diet
Making fiber-optic solutions a daily part of a balanced home and business offering
By Timothy Long, Computer Reseller News
Fiber optics is lighting the way to a whole new set of potential partnerships for digital integrators.
Home builders are laying fiber in new developments so they can be marketed as "digital-lifestyle-ready," municipalities are building their own fiber networks to attract new businesses, and telecom carriers are spending billions to get in on the action. As this build-out spurs homeowners to develop a healthy appetite for a high-fiber diet, carriers and network service providers are creating the platforms for future solutions to enable digital integrators to go way beyond the "triple-play" services of voice, video and data that now characterize the current phase of the broadband revolution.
"The convergence of voice, video and data in the home is the first step of a race to provide as many new IP-based services and feature sets as possible that all flow from this convergence," says Alain Fernando-Santana, CEO of Netcentrex, a global VoIP service provider based in San Jose, Calif.
Three years ago, Netcentrex saw this fiber fever coming and created Iplay3, a high-tech consortium to deliver triple-play services to home customers. Now, Netcentrex is looking to join with solution providers and digital integrators via a partner ecosystem to extend IP-based services deeper into the home. "We want to ally ourselves with companies who can hand-hold the home user," says Fernando-Santana. " With the proliferation of new broadband services, there's a need for all kinds of new services in the home and many opportunities for value-added solution providers to differentiate themselves."
The triple-play platform in the home is "just the beginning," he says. "Suddenly, you can begin delivering to homeowners things like e-learning, videoconferencing, security, gaming. And the loyalty factor to the companies providing these services skyrockets."
Fernando-Santana says Netcentrex "wants to make it as easy as possible to develop new IP-based services. That's why we created the ecosystem and why we're looking to partner with value-added solution providers."
Also looking to partner with integrators is HomeNet Communications, a Provo, Utah-based triple-play service provider. HomeNet went live in December with its services over Provo's fiber network, iProvo, and is hunting for partners to extend its offerings. "We're planning on setting up a network of VARs to deliver services in the home," says Bob Murtagh, HomeNet COO. "I can't be all things to all people."
Via a partnership with HomeNet, dlxEasyBackup has already piggybacked on the iProvo network to deliver backup solutions to homes and small businesses. "We help small-business owners and home users ensure that their data is backed up," says Chaz Nichols, vice president of dlxEasyBackup. "It happens while they work."
Nichols approached HomeNet to provide the service. "It just seemed like a great deal for both of us," he says. And with a fatter pipe into houses and home networking solutions becoming more prevalent, storage and security issues are a hot topic for customers you wouldn't expect at all, says Nichols. "Even little grandmas ask you about security today."
"Fiber networks are changing the way people live," says Max Kipfer, founder and president of Fiber Optic Communities in Focus, or FOCUS, a group of fiber-fed cities that banded together in October to spread the word about the advantages of living and working in their communities. "Telecommuting, distance learning and future in-home medical applications are now a reality in these communities."
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