Broadband for business: varied needs, many providers

Before the second Independents Hall location opened in 2009, volunteers installed cable for Internet services. Credit: Alex Hillman

Updated, Sept. 2, 2011: Added Cogent clarification and fixed typos.

Consumers hear a lot more about competition for residential services, but Internet service providers are equally focused on the fight for the business market in Philadelphia.

While residential customers generally get one-size-fits-all service from ISPs, business customers have wide array of needs and many companies to choose from.

“Probably one of the most competitive parts of the industry is services for businesses, it’s very profitable for different companies,” says Lee Gierczynski, Verizon spokesman.

Residential ISPs are successful because of their wide availability. Verizon and Comcast are forced to cast a wide net across the entire city, in part because they are legally required to do so, and in part because it’s the only way to make such a network profitable.

In the commercial sector, ISPs only have to respond to market forces. In Philadelphia the market includes everything from small one-user firms to large universities providing service for thousands. All of them have a variety of needs for bandwidth, but they all need service that is reliable and within their budget. All of them face a variety of interesting issues with getting service in Philadelphia.

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City: questionable gifts did not influence Verizon contracts

Business between Verizon and the city should continue as usual, officials say, even though a city employee was fired last week for taking more than $50,000 in gifts from the Verizon sales staff and an account set up to provide rewards for the city’s business with the phone company.

“Mr. James had multiple dealings with Verizon and the City has multiple contracts with the company. Each of those contracts was awarded through a competitive bid process and we have no reason to believe that the process was tampered with,” says Brian Abernathy, Chief of Staff to city Managing Director Rich Negrin.

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Where will broadband competition take Philadelphia?

A map of broadband adoption in Philadelphia prepared by Temple University researcher Charles Kaylor for the Philadelphia 2035 comprehensive plan.

Updated, Fri., July 15: Corrected typo on fact that 41 percent of Philadelphia has not adopted broadband.

For many years, broadband Internet in Philadelphia was only available to large companies and institutions with the budget to literally build connections. But Verizon‘s successful push to bring FiOS to the city has spurred Internet service providers operating in Philadelphia to compete. The result, city officials say, is that residents will pay less for better service.

Since early 2010, Verizon has been building a fiber-to-the-home network throughout the city with the goal of providing cable TV and high-speed Internet. Verizon representatives say they expect to make millions from customers looking to switch from rival Comcast.

Comcast says it welcomes the competition. But both companies and city representatives agree that city residents will win big from the deal. And in a city where broadband adoption — not physical access, but the use of commercial broadband — is low, increasing competition will be an important part of providing access to low-income individuals.

Forty-one percent of the city lacks broadband Internet in the home, according to data commissioned by the Knight Foundation and published in the city’s newly published Philadelphia 2035 comprehensive plan.

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First of dozens of city computer centers opens in Center City

Mayor Michael Nutter logged on last week at the launch of a new computer center built for Philadelphia FIGHT, at 13th and Spruce streets.

This article is part of Broadband2035, a series in partnership with PlanPhilly funded by an award from J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism to explore broadband issues to impact Philadelphia’s developing comprehensive plan.

Last week, Mayor Nutter and Congressman Bob Brady opened the first of a series of new public computer centers aimed at reaching the estimated 41 percent of city residents who do not have access to the Internet.

On Tuesday, during Philly Tech Week, the Mayor logged on at the new center at Philadelphia FIGHT, an HIV/AIDS support organization — at 13th and Spruce streets, kicking off the federal grant-funded program. FIGHT has for more than a decade provided internet resources for people affected by HIV in the city.

“You should be able to get the information you need, access to services and programs all over the place,” Mayor Nutter said. “This is the future of this city, and it’s from a technology perspective.”

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Planning Commission sees opportunity in short-term broadband goals for comprehensive plan

Illustration based on Philadelphia: Metropolis in Transition's archive

Philadelphia’s 1960 comprehensive plan was an effort to usher the city’s infrastructure into the future.

Back then, the plan called for build-out that Philadelphians today utilize daily, like the creation of a new tunnel for commuter rail that would cut through Center City to meet peak-hour demands and an expressway that would help connect the city to the suburbs.

For the first time since that plan was drafted more than 60 years ago, the city planning commission is undertaking a new long-term vision for the city’s built environment.

The Philadelphia 2035 Comprehensive Plan will eventually modify zoning around commercial corridors and industrial centers, and lay out new infrastructure and transit lines says Alan Urek, Director of Strategic Planning and Policy at the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. And the commission hopes it will result in improving the city’s economy, health and environmental impact.

On the ground, the plan looks at ways to improve center city’s stature as a metropolitan center, and increase investment in the city’s neighborhoods and former industrial zones. Specific projects include transit on Roosevelt Boulevard connecting the Far Northeast to the Broad Street Line, transit-oriented development at SEPTA’s North Philadelphia station, near Temple University, and greening of city schoolyards for use as neighborhood parks.

Broadband advocates argue that creation of new fiber networks have become just as important as other forms of infrastructure, like the water system and public utilities that traverse the earth beneath the city. And recent broadband stimulus projects awarded to Philadelphia support the role that government can play in funding long-term broadband projects.

But in Philadelphia’s new comprehensive plan [PDF], there’s little direction on how the city can increase high-speed connectivity, improve adoption, and ultimately, help bridge the digital divide.

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