By Joe Bousquin ■ Contributing Editor, Broadband Properties This month’s showcased property is Trump Plaza Jersey City, a luxury tower developed by Metro Homes in partner- ship with the Trump Organization. The developer worked with private cable operator BroadStar Communications to deploy fiber to the unit, and leveraged Dish Network’s QAM solution to provide bulk video and Internet services to residents, as well as telephony. Our thanks to Metro Homes founder Dean Geibel, as well as BroadStar’s Tyler and Rus- sell Bell, for their assistance in preparing this feature. Trump Plaza Jersey City 24 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | APRIL 2009 BASIC PROPERTY INFORMATION W hen Dean Geibel, founder of Hoboken, New Jersey- based developer Metro Homes, set out to build the tallest residential building in New Jersey on the Hudson River’s Gold Coast, he knew he couldn’t skimp on the details. Not only did he want to command prices significantly higher than the going market rate in up-and-coming Jersey City; he also had a partner whose name, which was franchised to the building, would undoubtedly raise buyers’ expectations: Donald Trump. Every aspect of Trump Plaza Jersey City, which Geibel built and which the Trump Organization now manages, had to be top-notch, from the 24/7 concierge service and valet parking, to the rooftop resort and spa, 26-foot demilune heated thermal bath, Brown Labrador polished granite counters and cherry ginger cabinets. Even the views, which include the Manhattan skyline, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, are world-class. “e Trump name is considered the gold standard in lux- ury housing,” says Geibel. “When you buy from Trump, you expect everything, and we really wanted to put anything and everything we possibly could into this building. It’s very much like living in a luxury hotel.” So when it came to choosing the technology package for the building, Geibel couldn’t afford to go halfway. rough a partnership with private cable operator BroadStar Commu- nications, based in Williamstown, New Jersey, all 444 homes in the 55-story tower now enjoy fiber-to-the-unit connectiv- ity. Multiple three-port Ethernet jacks provide plug-and-play Internet, TV and phone connectivity, and residents can en- joy Internet speeds up to 18 Mbps. In-unit networking allows computers, printers and other peripherals to connect to one another automatically. Artist Rendering Artist Rendering
Transcript
By Joe Bousquin ■ Contributing Editor, Broadband Properties
This month’s showcased property is Trump Plaza Jersey City, a luxury tower developed by Metro Homes in partner-ship with the Trump Organization. The developer worked with private cable operator BroadStar Communications to deploy fiber to the unit, and leveraged Dish Network’s QAM solution to provide bulk video and Internet services to residents, as well as telephony. Our thanks to Metro Homes founder Dean Geibel, as well as BroadStar’s Tyler and Rus-sell Bell, for their assistance in preparing this feature.
Trump Plaza Jersey City
24 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | April 2009
Basic ProPerty information
When Dean Geibel, founder of Hoboken, New Jersey-based developer Metro Homes, set out to build the tallest residential building in New Jersey on the
Hudson River’s Gold Coast, he knew he couldn’t skimp on the details. Not only did he want to command prices significantly higher than the going market rate in up-and-coming Jersey City; he also had a partner whose name, which was franchised to the building, would undoubtedly raise buyers’ expectations: Donald Trump.
Every aspect of Trump Plaza Jersey City, which Geibel built and which the Trump Organization now manages, had to be top-notch, from the 24/7 concierge service and valet parking, to the rooftop resort and spa, 26-foot demilune heated thermal bath, Brown Labrador polished granite counters and cherry ginger cabinets. Even the views, which include the Manhattan skyline, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, are world-class.
“The Trump name is considered the gold standard in lux-ury housing,” says Geibel. “When you buy from Trump, you expect everything, and we really wanted to put anything and everything we possibly could into this building. It’s very much like living in a luxury hotel.”
So when it came to choosing the technology package for the building, Geibel couldn’t afford to go halfway. Through
a partnership with private cable operator BroadStar Commu-nications, based in Williamstown, New Jersey, all 444 homes in the 55-story tower now enjoy fiber-to-the-unit connectiv-ity. Multiple three-port Ethernet jacks provide plug-and-play Internet, TV and phone connectivity, and residents can en-joy Internet speeds up to 18 Mbps. In-unit networking allows computers, printers and other peripherals to connect to one another automatically.
Artist Rendering
Artist Rendering
April 2009 | www.broadbandproperties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | 25
BroadStar deployed Dish Network’s Quadrature Ampli-tude Modulation (QAM) system, which feeds programming to multiple units from a single dish and supports dual analog and digital signals. The set-up provides must-take bulk televi-sion services to residents, who pay for the base package through their condominium association fees and can select upgraded programming for additional fees paid to BroadStar. Packages include Korean and other international programming options to serve the area’s Asian communities.
While plans to complete a second tower at the project have been put on hold due to the current economic climate, Geibel says having the technology amenity has helped his sales velocity and pricing, and 82 percent of the first tower has been sold.
“This is one more amenity that’s helping us close deals,” Geibel says. “In this market, we’re throwing everything at them, including the kitchen sink, and this system is certainly something we can hang our hat on.” Prices start in the high $300,000s for a studio, and range into the millions; one of the building’s “grand” penthouses recently sold for $2.4 million.
The building also represented a coup for BroadStar, which collects an average of $147 per unit for its services each month. While many other Trump-branded properties have deployed Verizon’s FiOS services, Geibel says BroadStar stood out in the bidding process for the job, both in terms of price and techno-logical capabilities.
“Money is always a big consideration, and BroadStar gave us significantly lower rates than the incumbent providers,” Geibel says. “But beyond that, we have a 100-percent fiber dis-tribution system that’s one of the most advanced in the entire state. It’s been performing well, and is extremely stable. We felt the price was right, and that what was offered was better than what we saw from other providers.”
Tyler Bell, CEO of the private cable operator, says part of the firm’s winning equation was its service commitment. “If
we get a call on noon at Friday, we’ll be out there Friday after-noon,” Bell says. “A lot of developers in that situation would just choose the incumbent, with the thinking that it’s the safe choice. I was impressed by Metro’s willingness to choose a PCO, and taking a position that we could provide faster Inter-net and more services.”
Vital stats Located at Washington and Bay Streets in Jersey City, Trump Plaza I is the first of two planned towers hailed as the tallest residential buildings in New Jersey. At 532 feet, Trump Plaza I tops out at 55 stories housing 444 condo units. Luxurious in-teriors are complemented by an onsite resort and spa, 24-hour concierge service and breathtaking views of Manhattan, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.
Greenfield or retrofit? Greenfield
Number of residential units completed: 444
High-rise/mid-rise/garden style? High-rise
Date services started being delivered: June 2008
technology How is fiber distributed inside the building?Russell Bell, Vice President of Field Operations, BroadStar: We
deployed 14 144-count, single-mode Superior Essex fiber trunks to the 14 intermediate distribution frames (IDFs). From these locations, we deployed 4-count, single-mode “home run” cables to the structured wiring box (SWB) lo-cated inside each unit. All trunks were terminated inside our headend onto Standard Connector/Angled Physical Contact (SC/APC) panels. Two fibers were spliced all the way through to each unit, with one primary and one spare, which leaves the potential for two additional lines to be spliced through to each unit if ever needed.
Above: Fiber terminations at headend. The distribution trunk cables are spliced onto the back side, and the front side connections you see feed them with signal. Each yellow fiber on the leftmost of the three racks feeds a unit. There is a spare fiber run below each connection you see.
Above: Ports on right are CWDM combiners. Each fiber there carries all three services to each of the 1x32 splitters. Inputs behind each green output are for video and for data (phone, Internet). Calix equipment feeds the data side. Video-only outputs from optical three-way splitters are at left.
26 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | April 2009
From the SWB in the unit, we have home-run wires to each wall plate using one coax, one Ether-net and one phone cable. There are as many as eight wall plates within a unit.
Why did you choose this distribution ar-chitecture? Stability, flexibility, future proofing and redundancy.
What is the FTTH technology and who’s the electronics vendor? This is a fiber-to-the-unit framework, deployed over PON equipment from Calix.
Are you using MDU or SFU ONTs? We deployed the Calix 720G ONT, which is a single-family unit. Each home has its own ONT with one Ethernet port, two phone ports and one cable port. The cable port feeds an 8-way splitter, and each phone port feeds all drops within the unit. The Ethernet port is preconnected to the kitchen jack.
How was the technology installed to reduce cost and protect the aesthetic? All ca-bling is within riser closets, hallway drop ceilings, and free wired in the walls to the structured wiring box during preconstruction.
Have you provided wireless signals within units, or are residents free to set up their own wireless access points? Broad-Star wireless service is offered in the common areas, and owners have the
option of adding their own wire-less router within their units. When that’s the case, we try to educate the customer on password-protecting their connection.
How much square footage did you have to dedicate to the network inside the
building? Could closets be shared with other utilities, or did you need to create a dedicated maintenance space? Our headend space is a dedicated room that’s about 10’x 15.’ Our IDF space is shared and only takes 3’ x 3’ of wall space.
If your property has multiple buildings, is the network distributed between them via aerial or underground means, or both? Two 4-inch underground con-duits have been laid to connect the two towers when complete.
serVices Does the building have triple play services?
Yes.
Can residents subscribe to IPTV? Russell Bell: No, but the distribution is
capable of offering it. We have cho-sen to provide a digital QAM service offered through Dish Network. We went in this direction because they offer a larger selection of ethnic pro-gramming, and because the technol-ogy can be serviced by a traditional cable technician who doesn’t have to be trained in IP networking – which translates into lower overall service costs to BroadStar for the network as a whole.
The upgrade option supports standard and hi-def receivers, as well as standard and hi-def DVR/receiv-ers. The equipment cost and time to
Above: This is a fiber splicing junction in an IDF, where a fiber trunk is spliced to the home-run drop fibers going to the units.
Above: A chassis of 1x32-way optical splitters (that is, with one line in and 32 out). Each output fiber carries phone, cable, and Internet, and eventually feeds an ONT in each living unit.
The structured wiring box located in each unit contains the ONT, battery backup, fiber tray, coax splitter, phone punch-down board and blue Cat 5 Ethernet cable running to the wallplates.
April 2009 | www.broadbandproperties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | 27
install is significantly less than the IP method, and it can be deployed over traditional cable TV coax plants, as well as fiber.
Tyler Bell: We are actually strong believ-ers in offering an analog tier as well as digital services. I know there’s this big buzz that everybody is only interested in digital TV, but we are challenging that a little bit. There is definitely a demand for digital tele-vision, but when you have three to five bedrooms and you have kids, you don’t necessarily want five or six set-top boxes just so the kids can watch the Cartoon Network on the television in the kitchen or their bed-rooms. Many customers would rather have an analog signal for those sets, and plug them straight into the back of their TVs. So having a combina-tion of analog and digital, I think for a long time is still going to be the best solution. There is a push to all-digital, which, by the way, is much cheaper. It’s easier to do all-digital or all-IP. But we think that the invest-ment into analog is valuable.
Do residents have a choice of service pro-viders? How many service providers can they choose from?
Russell Bell: Currently, since New Jer-sey is a mandatory-access state, they have the choice of BroadStar or Comcast. However, we have an agreement to provide bulk cable (25 channels) and bulk Internet (up to 386 Kbps) to each unit. The fee for this base package, which amounts to approximately $45 per month, is built into the homeowners associa-tion dues. Residents can subscribe to upgraded services and speeds for an additional charge.
How did the owner set up the dual choice capabilities, from a wiring and busi-ness standpoint?
Russell Bell: Although Comcast has ca-bled the building, because we laid fiber all the way into the SWB in-side the units, they have not resolved their challenge of getting cable from the hallway into the units them-selves. In a mandatory-access state, outside providers have the right to access established lines at 10 inches
outside the unit. But because we ran fiber and not coax, they have no ser-viceable wire to intercept outside the unit at that distance.
The irony is that some companies want to play it safe by running a coax cable, running a fiber line, and run-ning a phone line so they can have re-dundancy, because who knows what might come down the road. But if we had run a coax cable, our competi-tors would have the right to use it.
Tyler Bell: That’s another really nice ad-vantage of running fiber to the unit. There’s a little bit of protection in it for us.
If residents have an issue or technical chal-lenge, whom do they call? BroadStar.
Business Who owns the network? BroadStar.
Was there a door fee? If so, what was it? BroadStar paid the developer $150 per door, which was significantly less than what other providers were of-fering at the time (up to $700). The developer paid for all labor to run the lines within the building, and within each unit. Metro Homes also paid for the wall plates within the unit.
Are services automatically included in the rent or condo fees? If not, what was the initial take rate? Basic cable and Inter-
net is included in the condominium fees. Internet upgrades to 18 Mbps service are running at about 40 per-cent, with digital television upgrades running at about 70 percent. Phone upgrades are at 25 percent.
Who handles billing and collection? BroadStar bills residents directly for any upgraded services. The Trump Organization collects the condo-minium fees.
How are the services marketed, and by whom? Residents receive welcome packages explaining BroadStar’s ser-vices when they move in.
What has the return been on this imple-mentation, in dollars or otherwise?
Dean Geibel: This is one more way to differentiate ourselves from the competition, one more thing for us to brag about. When someone asks, “Do you have the bandwidth?” we can honestly say yes. And not only that, but we can say that this is one of the most advanced systems avail-able anywhere right now. And it’s not just smoke and mirrors. You can point to these things. They’re real.
Why did the property owner decide to structure the deployment in this way, from a business perspective?
Russell Bell: Metro Homes was initially
28 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | April 2009
unaware of our method of fiber deployment. The benefit was that they negotiated a great bulk rate, with a reputable company with 25 years in the business.
onsite exPerience/lessons learnedWhat was the biggest challenge? Russell Bell: Working with the unions. Since we
didn’t have the option to pull our own cable, many of the drops were pulled in an incor-rect manner, causing many of the drops to fail their light testing. The fix was to replace and resplice these faulty drops.
What was the biggest success? Russell Bell: Calix has been an outstanding
product. It offers the ability to remote acti-vate/deactivate any service and adjust band-width usage for any customer. These ONTs will also alert us of power failures, battery backup failures and signal issues. It’s a very stable system with great customer support.
Dean Geibel: I think it’s the fact that it provides one-stop shop-ping for our residents. If there is a problem, it’s one phone call. There’s no finger-pointing between different people. BroadStar provides everything, and their service is excel-lent. It’s nice that they take care of the whole ball of wax.
Speed Wire is a premier provider of technology installation services. We install wired and wireless
broadband internet access infrastructure for residential and business communities. Some of the Nation’s largest CLEC’s, ILEC’s, and Fortune 500
Companies contract Speed Wire’s field services team for installations, upgrades, and deployment services.
Providing installation and support forCopper & Fiber Structured Cabling
Wireless Technologies (Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, PtoP)Site Surveys • Nationwide Roll Outs
How has the network affected life at the community? How has it helped reposition the community?
Russell Bell: Because we chose Dish Network’s QAM solu-tion for the cable TV upgrade, residents have the option to choose a wide variety of ethnic programming not offered by other providers. Since this property has a very high Korean population, these kinds of custom programming packages have been well received. We also offer a South Asian pack-age, Japanese, Spanish and others.
I would also note that for Internet, we offer more band-width than the incumbent, as well as unlimited, full-fea-tured phone service, for less cost.
What would you say to owners who want to deploy a similar net-work? What issues should they consider before they get started?
Russell Bell: Try to avoid unions. For BroadStar, unions add about 75 percent to the cost of any job, even when we pay our in-house people prevailing wages. Developers should negotiate, up front, their ability to outsource certain parts of their construction, or at least the communications por-tion, to union-approved subcontractors, so that you’re not beholden solely to the union alone.
Dean Geibel: As in any business decision, you’re looking at value – what does it cost to provide these services, versus what it would cost if you went to a competitor, or if you broke it up into different systems. You need to consider what an-other provider might offer, and whether you would get the same types of services, as well as whether all these services are necessary.
In a building like Trump Plaza, it is an absolute neces-sity. In a smaller or less prestigious building, you might be able to get away with not providing the best of everything, but I think doing so is money well spent, because people are more and more savvy about their technology choices these days. BBP
