CSNbbs

Today I learned that Memphis CAN provide gigabit ethernet speeds 5x faster than "Google Cities." I wonder if this is limited to company network speeds, or general internet connection at the building. Also I'm presuming, at risk, that Google Cities is the same as Google Fiber. Either way, it's been an eventful couple of weeks in economic development. Also, from this, I realize that Memphis has a somewhat nascent apartment management sector (MAA, EdR, and LEDIC).

MBJ: LEDIC consolidates national headquarters in Memphis

"After completing two acquisitions outside the state of Tennessee, Memphis-based LEDIC Realty Co. was faced with finding a location for its consolidated headquarters.

Through its recent acquisitions, LEDIC has acquired more than 9,000 apartment units in 2015, making it one of the fastest growing commercial real estate firms in the nation. It’s acquired companies with offices in El Paso, Texas; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Honolulu, Hawaii; Los Angeles, California; Washington, D.C.; Little Rock, Arkansas and Montgomery, Alabama.

On Wednesday, Randy Boyd, Economic and Community Development Commissioner for Tennessee, announced that the company would be consolidating its back office real estate management operations in Memphis with a $10.2 million headquarters and training facility at 555 Perkins.

Using a fiber optic network from Level 3 Communications and AT&T, LEDIC’s new headquarters will also include gigabit Ethernet speeds that are five times faster than Google City.

LEDIC’s goal is to occupy half of a four-story building. The other half of the building, roughly 30,000 square feet, will be leased for access to the fiber optic network.

The company is hoping to follow in the footsteps of MAA and EdR who have integrated technology to change the real estate industry, Ledbetter said.

Currently, LEDIC occupies about 12,000 square feet at 2650 Thousand Oaks Blvd., and the company’s lease will expire in April 2016.

LEDIC considered other cities in Tennessee, as well as outside the state, before deciding to stay in Memphis.

The Greater Memphis Chamber brought its “one-stop-shop team” together to come up with incentives that would make LEDIC’s decision to stay a little easier.

...

Part of the incentives will go toward the state-of-the-art training facility. The company has created proprietary curriculum known as LEDIC University.

“Employees can come in as a leasing agent and rise through the ranks to have a management career,” Ledbetter says.

LEDIC now manages 40,000 apartment unit and employs more than 1,100 people nationwide. In Memphis, the company has about 200 employees. The expansion will result in 100 more employees in Memphis and an additional 200 throughout the state in positions such as management, construction, maintenance and leasing.

...."

MBJ: LEDIC consolidates national headquarters in Memphis

I read this yesterday as well - great news.

I have no idea why they put that "5x faster than google" sentence in there - we're talking about a corporate HQ here. It's easy for companies to get fiber in memphis (at significant cost) - what google does is provide fiber to the home which traditional telecoms are hesitant to do because of infrastructure expense.

Google "last mile"

Level 3 is a big backbone internet provider. They have a ton of bandwidth to provide to companies that pay for it. The fiber that they'll be providing to that headquarters is enterprise level and not the same that you would get at home. Other big companies like FedEx and even the UofM have crazy speeds available to them that you could never get at home.

That's a bit disappointing...

I'm curious what's the least expensive way to get over the hump of delivering as much gigabit service to as many people as possible? Is it feasible for the smaller wealthier area municipalities, i.e. G'town, to pursue it themselves? Or does that infringe on MLGW territory or rights? Or is it more expensive to do something so piecemeal, and better to do it broadly? I recall something by Time Warner ten or fifteen years ago (Networx?) that stalled.

Are the infrastructural challenges/expenses essentially the same for all communities? Is the difference with Chattanooga merely the willingness of the community to pay (tax themselves, construction inconvenience in tearing up roads and land to weave new wiring) to overcome these infrastructural expense obstacles?

Is the main obstacle the expense, and our reluctance to pay for it?

(11-13-2015 01:59 PM)kabluey Wrote: [ -> ]That's a bit disappointing...

I'm curious what's the least expensive way to get over the hump of delivering as much gigabit service to as many people as possible? Is it feasible for the smaller wealthier area municipalities, i.e. G'town, to pursue it themselves? Or does that infringe on MLGW territory or rights? Or is it more expensive to do something so piecemeal, and better to do it broadly? I recall something by Time Warner ten or fifteen years ago (Networx?) that stalled.

Are the infrastructural challenges/expenses essentially the same for all communities? Is the difference with Chattanooga merely the willingness of the community to pay (tax themselves, construction inconvenience in tearing up roads and land to weave new wiring) to overcome these infrastructural expense obstacles?

Is the main obstacle the expense, and our reluctance to pay for it?

yes, it's infrastructure costs that service providers are not willing to invest in - specifically in the last mile. most companies have fiber run to areas or neighborhoods but running it to every home runs up the cost.

google runs fiber to every home.

chatanooga's fiber service is owned by the city.

(11-13-2015 02:15 PM)tiger2000 Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-13-2015 01:59 PM)kabluey Wrote: [ -> ]That's a bit disappointing...

I'm curious what's the least expensive way to get over the hump of delivering as much gigabit service to as many people as possible? Is it feasible for the smaller wealthier area municipalities, i.e. G'town, to pursue it themselves? Or does that infringe on MLGW territory or rights? Or is it more expensive to do something so piecemeal, and better to do it broadly? I recall something by Time Warner ten or fifteen years ago (Networx?) that stalled.

Are the infrastructural challenges/expenses essentially the same for all communities? Is the difference with Chattanooga merely the willingness of the community to pay (tax themselves, construction inconvenience in tearing up roads and land to weave new wiring) to overcome these infrastructural expense obstacles?

Is the main obstacle the expense, and our reluctance to pay for it?

yes, it's infrastructure costs that service providers are not willing to invest in - specifically in the last mile. most companies have fiber run to areas or neighborhoods but running it to every home runs up the cost.

google runs fiber to every home.

chatanooga's fiber service is owned by the city.

If it were possible to follow Chattanooga's model, then that's the way to go. The power company there runs it. They probably already have the means to easily deploy fiber along their existing infrastructure that covers the city. The problem is that companies like Comcast have lobbied the state to prevent other cities from doing it. Chattanooga got to keep theirs but other cities can't create a municipal ISP.

(11-13-2015 02:40 PM)yakko Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-13-2015 02:15 PM)tiger2000 Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-13-2015 01:59 PM)kabluey Wrote: [ -> ]That's a bit disappointing...

I'm curious what's the least expensive way to get over the hump of delivering as much gigabit service to as many people as possible? Is it feasible for the smaller wealthier area municipalities, i.e. G'town, to pursue it themselves? Or does that infringe on MLGW territory or rights? Or is it more expensive to do something so piecemeal, and better to do it broadly? I recall something by Time Warner ten or fifteen years ago (Networx?) that stalled.

Are the infrastructural challenges/expenses essentially the same for all communities? Is the difference with Chattanooga merely the willingness of the community to pay (tax themselves, construction inconvenience in tearing up roads and land to weave new wiring) to overcome these infrastructural expense obstacles?

Is the main obstacle the expense, and our reluctance to pay for it?

yes, it's infrastructure costs that service providers are not willing to invest in - specifically in the last mile. most companies have fiber run to areas or neighborhoods but running it to every home runs up the cost.

google runs fiber to every home.

chatanooga's fiber service is owned by the city.

If it were possible to follow Chattanooga's model, then that's the way to go. The power company there runs it. They probably already have the means to easily deploy fiber along their existing infrastructure that covers the city. The problem is that companies like Comcast have lobbied the state to prevent other cities from doing it. Chattanooga got to keep theirs but other cities can't create a municipal ISP.

True and Chattanooga is a smaller city.

The city is of memphis probably hesitant to let MLGW do anything in the telecom space after the Memphis Networx debacle.

(11-13-2015 02:56 PM)tiger2000 Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-13-2015 02:40 PM)yakko Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-13-2015 02:15 PM)tiger2000 Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-13-2015 01:59 PM)kabluey Wrote: [ -> ]That's a bit disappointing...

I'm curious what's the least expensive way to get over the hump of delivering as much gigabit service to as many people as possible? Is it feasible for the smaller wealthier area municipalities, i.e. G'town, to pursue it themselves? Or does that infringe on MLGW territory or rights? Or is it more expensive to do something so piecemeal, and better to do it broadly? I recall something by Time Warner ten or fifteen years ago (Networx?) that stalled.

Are the infrastructural challenges/expenses essentially the same for all communities? Is the difference with Chattanooga merely the willingness of the community to pay (tax themselves, construction inconvenience in tearing up roads and land to weave new wiring) to overcome these infrastructural expense obstacles?

Is the main obstacle the expense, and our reluctance to pay for it?

yes, it's infrastructure costs that service providers are not willing to invest in - specifically in the last mile. most companies have fiber run to areas or neighborhoods but running it to every home runs up the cost.

google runs fiber to every home.

chatanooga's fiber service is owned by the city.

If it were possible to follow Chattanooga's model, then that's the way to go. The power company there runs it. They probably already have the means to easily deploy fiber along their existing infrastructure that covers the city. The problem is that companies like Comcast have lobbied the state to prevent other cities from doing it. Chattanooga got to keep theirs but other cities can't create a municipal ISP.

True and Chattanooga is a smaller city.

The city is of memphis probably hesitant to let MLGW do anything in the telecom space after the Memphis Networx debacle.

It's smaller, but has more geographic issues because it's not as flat as Memphis.

Yeah, Memphis would probably be hesitant, but they couldn't do anything even if they wanted to. The ISP situation in the entire country pretty much sucks.

(11-13-2015 02:40 PM)yakko Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-13-2015 02:15 PM)tiger2000 Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-13-2015 01:59 PM)kabluey Wrote: [ -> ]That's a bit disappointing...

I'm curious what's the least expensive way to get over the hump of delivering as much gigabit service to as many people as possible? Is it feasible for the smaller wealthier area municipalities, i.e. G'town, to pursue it themselves? Or does that infringe on MLGW territory or rights? Or is it more expensive to do something so piecemeal, and better to do it broadly? I recall something by Time Warner ten or fifteen years ago (Networx?) that stalled.

Are the infrastructural challenges/expenses essentially the same for all communities? Is the difference with Chattanooga merely the willingness of the community to pay (tax themselves, construction inconvenience in tearing up roads and land to weave new wiring) to overcome these infrastructural expense obstacles?

Is the main obstacle the expense, and our reluctance to pay for it?

yes, it's infrastructure costs that service providers are not willing to invest in - specifically in the last mile. most companies have fiber run to areas or neighborhoods but running it to every home runs up the cost.

google runs fiber to every home.

chatanooga's fiber service is owned by the city.

If it were possible to follow Chattanooga's model, then that's the way to go. The power company there runs it. They probably already have the means to easily deploy fiber along their existing infrastructure that covers the city. The problem is that companies like Comcast have lobbied the state to prevent other cities from doing it. Chattanooga got to keep theirs but other cities can't create a municipal ISP.

Wow, didn't know about the telecoms c-blocking municipalities in Tennessee.

(11-13-2015 04:08 PM)kabluey Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-13-2015 02:40 PM)yakko Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-13-2015 02:15 PM)tiger2000 Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-13-2015 01:59 PM)kabluey Wrote: [ -> ]That's a bit disappointing...

I'm curious what's the least expensive way to get over the hump of delivering as much gigabit service to as many people as possible? Is it feasible for the smaller wealthier area municipalities, i.e. G'town, to pursue it themselves? Or does that infringe on MLGW territory or rights? Or is it more expensive to do something so piecemeal, and better to do it broadly? I recall something by Time Warner ten or fifteen years ago (Networx?) that stalled.

Are the infrastructural challenges/expenses essentially the same for all communities? Is the difference with Chattanooga merely the willingness of the community to pay (tax themselves, construction inconvenience in tearing up roads and land to weave new wiring) to overcome these infrastructural expense obstacles?

Is the main obstacle the expense, and our reluctance to pay for it?

yes, it's infrastructure costs that service providers are not willing to invest in - specifically in the last mile. most companies have fiber run to areas or neighborhoods but running it to every home runs up the cost.

google runs fiber to every home.

chatanooga's fiber service is owned by the city.

If it were possible to follow Chattanooga's model, then that's the way to go. The power company there runs it. They probably already have the means to easily deploy fiber along their existing infrastructure that covers the city. The problem is that companies like Comcast have lobbied the state to prevent other cities from doing it. Chattanooga got to keep theirs but other cities can't create a municipal ISP.

Wow, didn't know about the telecoms c-blocking municipalities in Tennessee.

Me either. Not shocking, but it sucks.

Don't you think Networx would have worked in 2010 rather than 2000? I always believed that, by the time the real need was there, everyone was tired of pouring money into it. It did strike me as too far ahead of the curve.

2010 may have been too far ahead of its time, even. Our psyche necer really even BEGAN to see a real recovery until 2010 or 2011 (ie Grit n Grind). Thats around the time of I Love Memphis and Choose 901, around the time our national rankings began shifting more positively. And it started to snowball. But, yes, 2000, with the city-county schism still simmering, not an opportune time to get support of startups, aspiring coders and innovators, etc. Heck, thats before 9-11, before the Grizz even arrived, much less Grit n Grind...

(11-13-2015 09:13 AM)kabluey Wrote: [ -> ]Today I learned that Memphis CAN provide gigabit ethernet speeds 5x faster than "Google Cities." I wonder if this is limited to company network speeds, or general internet connection at the building. Also I'm presuming, at risk, that Google Cities is the same as Google Fiber. Either way, it's been an eventful couple of weeks in economic development. Also, from this, I realize that Memphis has a somewhat nascent apartment management sector (MAA, EdR, and LEDIC).

MBJ: LEDIC consolidates national headquarters in Memphis

"After completing two acquisitions outside the state of Tennessee, Memphis-based LEDIC Realty Co. was faced with finding a location for its consolidated headquarters.

Through its recent acquisitions, LEDIC has acquired more than 9,000 apartment units in 2015, making it one of the fastest growing commercial real estate firms in the nation. It’s acquired companies with offices in El Paso, Texas; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Honolulu, Hawaii; Los Angeles, California; Washington, D.C.; Little Rock, Arkansas and Montgomery, Alabama.

On Wednesday, Randy Boyd, Economic and Community Development Commissioner for Tennessee, announced that the company would be consolidating its back office real estate management operations in Memphis with a $10.2 million headquarters and training facility at 555 Perkins.

Using a fiber optic network from Level 3 Communications and AT&T, LEDIC’s new headquarters will also include gigabit Ethernet speeds that are five times faster than Google City.

LEDIC’s goal is to occupy half of a four-story building. The other half of the building, roughly 30,000 square feet, will be leased for access to the fiber optic network.

The company is hoping to follow in the footsteps of MAA and EdR who have integrated technology to change the real estate industry, Ledbetter said.

Currently, LEDIC occupies about 12,000 square feet at 2650 Thousand Oaks Blvd., and the company’s lease will expire in April 2016.

LEDIC considered other cities in Tennessee, as well as outside the state, before deciding to stay in Memphis.

The Greater Memphis Chamber brought its “one-stop-shop team” together to come up with incentives that would make LEDIC’s decision to stay a little easier.

...

Part of the incentives will go toward the state-of-the-art training facility. The company has created proprietary curriculum known as LEDIC University.

“Employees can come in as a leasing agent and rise through the ranks to have a management career,” Ledbetter says.

LEDIC now manages 40,000 apartment unit and employs more than 1,100 people nationwide. In Memphis, the company has about 200 employees. The expansion will result in 100 more employees in Memphis and an additional 200 throughout the state in positions such as management, construction, maintenance and leasing.

...."

MBJ: LEDIC consolidates national headquarters in Memphis

Ledbetter said the availability of a high-speed fiber optic line, capable of delivering Internet speeds of 10 gigabits a second, was the tipping point in the headquarters location search. The company looked elsewhere in Tennessee and beyond, including Austin, Texas. "Then we rolled out the map and we started meeting with the Memphis Chamber of Commerce," he said.

"We looked at the fiber optic network around Memphis, and lo and behold it turns out Memphis has something today not many Memphians may know. LEDIC is now able to take advantage, from Level 3 and AT&T, (of) fiber optic at the corner of Poplar and Perkins that is faster than Google (Fiber)," Ledbetter said.

LEDIC expansion in Memphis to create 300 jobs

I wonder how much of this is related to the original Memphis Angels/Networx group that proposed a fiber ring network? Fred Smith, Pitt Hyde, Thomas Garrott, etc.

.