COMPTEL PLUS — As it looks forward to its life as a private company free of encumbrances from RCN’s cable business, a move announced earlier this month, RCN Metro Optical Networks will focus full time on designing, building, and operating a broadband stimulus supported, 350-mile advanced fiber network for OpenCape in Southeast Massachusetts.
A nonprofit organization with grass roots in the Cape Cod community, OpenCape was awarded $32 million through the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) signed by President Obama in 2009 and the $7.2 billion set aside as the Broadband Technology Opportunity Program (BTOP) to bring advanced broadband services to more than 60 anchor institutions on Cape Cod and the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Connections also will run to Providence, Rhode Island and Boston in order to serve Southeast Massachusetts.
OpenCape, in turn, awarded the contract for building that network to RCN Metro after a competitive bidding process in which RCN Metro promised to build an open access, vendor-neutral middle mile network of high capacity optical transport. Initial services will include dedicated point-to-point SONET and Ethernet from 1.5mbps to 10Gbps; switched Ethernet from 1.5mbps to 10gbps; wavelength from 1.25mbps to 10gbps; and Internet access.
Dan Gallagher, president of OpenCape, said in a prepared statement that Cape Cod and the Islands are in desperate need of a ubiquitous, reliable, redundant and cost-competitive telecommunications infrastructure.
We have three years to build it, but we are looking to bring it in much faster,” said Maura Mahoney, vice president of sales and marketing for RCN Metro. She said it is actually a $40 million project consisting of the $32 million from OpenCape’s grant, $5 million from the Advanced Broadband Institute, a $1 million neutral collocation facility donated by the County of Barnstable and $2 million form RCN Metro.
Felipe Alvarez, president of RCN Metro, said the network will have a positive impact on both the business community and residents of the area. “From a business perspective it will enable business broadband access and bring more people and safety around the Cape, and new industries. For residents, it enables a provider to come in and offer triple play and other advanced services.”
Mahoney said it will be an open network that others can leverage to service those residential customers. “To this point, it is very much a closed network. There wasn’t a lot of innovation there. It was almost a throwaway region to Comcast and Verizon who were the two incumbents,” she said. “It’s not like you couldn’t get the services, but they were not cost effective and weren’t as reliable as needed. So this will really foster competition and when there is competition there is innovation.”
On March 5, RCN Corp. announced it will be acquired by ABRY Partners for $1.2 billion. The transaction is expected to be completed in the second half of 2010, subject to receipt of stockholder approval and regulatory approvals.
“Being private gives us a different level of flexibility and helps us form a cost perspective because we wouldn’t carry the burden of a public company,” Alvarez said. “It doesn’t mean you run your business in a shoddy way. But it will help us more aggressively grow the business and gives us a clearer shot at capital. It is a very good development.”
