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?

I live in one (Houston, TX)

[jbf]

WaldenWeb [waldenweb.com] 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.

High-speed internet in downtown Chicago

[Anonymous Coward]

My apartment building [northpiertower.com] is hooked up to a T1 line, and offers 10baseT access in each apartment at $45 at month.

Rents are expensive though - around $1500 for a one bedroom.

Harbor Steps in Seattle

[Anonymous Coward]

Harbor Steps [harborproperties.com] in Seattle has to be one of the best wired apartment complexes in the country. This is also one of Blockbuster's test sites for video on demand over IP. I'm pretty sure each apartment comes with cat 5 with 100baseT to a switched network on multiple OC-3's. Not to mention the fact that they are next to the Pike Street Market and over looks Eliot Bay.

Tower 801 in Seattle

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Jersey City, NJ

[Anonymous Coward]

Along the Jersey City waterfront, in a development called Newport, the 5 newest high-rise apartment buildings are wired for ethernet. The network connects to the 'net by at least one T3. I regularly see 300KB/s. It costs 49.95/mo for one static IP.

cambridgeside

[AssFace]

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)

Philly

[swingkid]

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.

Issaquah Highlands

[Thatman311]

Issaquah Highlands has fiber run throughout the entire neighborhood. There are apartments, condo's, townhomes and houses in that neighborhood. Used to live there...pretty much kicks ass.

Atlanta apartments/condos

[Anonymous Coward]

Many (about 30) condo and apartment buildings in the downtown/midtown metro Atlanta area have Internet access from Biltmore Communications:

http://www.biltmorecommunications.com/

In my condo building, they have hubs/switches in the mechanical room on each floor and run cat5 to each unit. The buildings are interconnected via a wireless network.

College towns

[deuist]

Most college towns such as Gainesville, Fl have tons of apartment complexes with high-speed internet access found in every room. Check out http://theplacetolive.com/ [theplacetolive.com] for an example.

Cherry Hill, NJ

[mattfusf]

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)