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| Go Wireless! How Wi-Fi Technology is Changing Real Estate |
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Only three to four years ago, high-speed Internet access was a top demand from savvy commercial tenants. Prospective renters or buyers wanting to know whether buildings were wired for DSL or cable service, who the service providers were, and just how high-speed the networks could be.
But high-speed Internet is a commodity now. In many cases, it is a common and expected amenity offered by commercial building owners. The new hot topic in commercial real estate is Wi-Fi - wireless Internet access and the technology that makes it possible.
As most busy REALTORS® already know, wireless Internet access can be an invaluable business tool. Wi-Fi enabled devices such as PDAs or laptop computers make it much easier to share information on-the-go and stay connected with clients and the home office. A growing number of building owners and commercial tenants are requesting Wi-Fi for their own employees or clients - turning Wi-Fi access into a popular selling point for commercial REALTORS.
Many property owners, in venues ranging from office buildings to hotels and restaurants to Minute Maid Park, have begun incorporating Wi-Fi into their properties. Julie Abraham, strategic account manager for Time Warner Cable Business Solutions (www.twcbs.com), explained that owners have an incredible variety of arrangements possible when it comes to wireless capability.
Property owners can design as simple or as complex an access scheme as they desire. In a low-security environment, users might only need to click an “Access the network” button from a common homepage. A special username and password could be required in a more sensitive location - for example, individual offices might want a separate authentication page with a private network, limiting access to employees or other specific users. Businesses can also require users to pay for the time they spend online, whether by a pay-for-play log-on system or by distributing time-limited Wi-Fi access cards to their customers, Abraham said.
These cards, in denominations of 15, 30 or 60 minutes, allow a user to log on to the Wi-Fi network for a specific and limited amount of time, giving a property owner more control over who accesses the Internet.
The expense required to implement Wi-Fi Internet access varies greatly; it doesn’t have to be expensive, but it can be if property owners want to go all-out. Installation costs vary widely, depending on how hard it is to install the access points and how many access points are required, as well as whether other parts of the building already have Wi-Fi capability. For obvious reasons, it is usually cheaper to plan Wi-Fi access into a new building than to retrofit an existing one.
Bob Parsley, co-chairman of Colliers International, said that he has seen more and more Class-A buildings promoting that they offer Wi-Fi capability in their common areas, such as cafeterias or lobbies. Outside of common areas, however, commercial tenants are often responsible for obtaining their own wireless Internet access in their private spaces. This allows individual tenants to choose their own levels of service - and expense - to accommodate their specific needs.
Parsley explained that many of today's tenants have become quite tech-savvy and know what questions to ask about Wi-Fi and other technological features. As a result, they see a clear value in improvements of this kind.
“Wi-Fi access demonstrates differing levels of quality in a property, just like concierge services or other high-end amenities,” Parsley concluded. “It’s definitely a differentiating factor in today’s real estate market.”
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