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Apartments for Techies?
thedistance asks:
"I'm wondering if anyone has heard of companies retro fitting any
of the failed telecom hotels for apartment use? It sure would be nice
to find an apartment complex that was designed just for the tech
croud with a fiber/cat5 infrastructure throughout. It sure would make
it a lot easier to setup highspeed internet access, video on demand,
and wlans... not to mention an easy way to borrow the spare NIC from
your neighbor... (we can just leave the sugar borrowing to the rest
of the non-techie world)" If you know of an apartment complex
offering high bandwidth, please post a comment, below. Aside from
bandwidth, what other amenities would make an apartment complex ideal
for the high tech worker in the 21st Century?
WaldenWeb has a few apartment complexes in the Houston area; they run an OC-3 from an ISP to their NOC, and run OC-3 from their NOC to each of their apartments. My apartment has 3 RJ-45 drops (only one of which I can make active at a time, but that's what a hub is for). Rent is reasonable, Internet access runs about $50/month.
http://www.tower801.com
Features at Tower @ 801
View balconies outside every livingroom and bedroom
Outdoor deck with pool
24 hour fitness room with separate saunas
Club room with DVD home theater system and large laundry room
Cafe Lado open from 5:30 am to 11:00 pm
Laundry facilities
High speed Internet access
Digital cable
Secured underground parking
Storage facilities
Small pets allowed (larger pets upon approval)
Concierge Services
Onsite dry-cleaning pick up and drop off
Package acceptance/delivery
Fax/copy service
Concert and Broadway ticket packages
Restaurant packages
Dog walking
I believe they also have a video library you can check stuff out of. AND, if you're got good enough line-of-sight, you can easily snipe major bandwidth from all the wide-open 802.11 networks downtown! Mwuahahah!
there is cambridgeside near kendall square in cambridge - they are pretty damn expensive (last I looked was a year or two ago and they were $1600 for a 1 bedroom) and they have like 8 billion phone lines per apt, lots of outlets, and a T1 in every room...
I'm plenty happy in my place with cable modem - but I only have one outlet and the place is old so the power sucks...
I'm out in Somerville (slummerville)
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
I live @ in Philly at an apartment building called The Left Bank. Right now, i get synchronous 640k wireless ethernet w/ 802.11b (11mpbs to the access points, of course), for $50 / mo. The building was originally going to wire all the apartments w/ ethernet, but they switched when the realized a wireless infrastructure would be much cheaper. One thing that bugs me no end is that they don't use WEP at all, although they restrict access to the network to known MAC addresses. Anyway, i'm pretty happy w/ it. I wish the downstream were a bit faster, but i challenge you to find an ISP that has 640k upstream for so cheap.
In about a month, I'm moving to a "wired" apartment complex in Cherry Hill, NJ (about 15 minutes from Philly)
The rent includes broadband Internet access. Each room in the apartment has a jack with a DSS, cable, and 3 or 4 RJ-45 jacks for network/phone. There is a patch panel in the front closet where everything ties in. See http://www.roselandmgt.com/ and look in the "Roselink" section for more info)