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Build it from scratch or buy it out of a box? For a growing number of new broadband networks and smaller broadband competitors trying to quickly cook up profitable high-speed Internet services, the answer is to go with the ready-made option.
And that is creating a booming market for a relatively new breed of middlemen: The outsource design and management operation, a one-stop shop offering to design, build and operate service networks.
At a little more than two years old, High Speed Access Corp. is a senior member of the design/build group focused on cable operators. Until recently, HSA has targeted smaller cable operators, but the company's offerings have expanded to include Digital Subscriber Line and satellite platforms. HSA also provides networks with promotions and marketing support.
Chad Thornburg, HSA's vice president of engineering, says one of the areas HSA has boosted to meet demand is network monitoring. The company is in the process of upgrading its Louisville, Ky., network operations center to fine-tune monitoring and add support for non-cable platforms.
"HSA is working and continues to work to actively merge network monitoring," he says. "We're trying to push network monitoring so we can see all the way down to the cable modem through the headend."
Thornburg also points to speed of deployment as a selling point for HSA services, adding that in the past two years the level of sophistication for systems carrying data and telephony services makes outside expertise even more attractive to operators.
"We work across the spectrum, really," Thornburg says. "If it will carry data, we will have somebody on staff that has done it."
And HSA has noticed the entry of newer competitors. "Business is growing exponentially," says Thornburg. "I would expect the competition to go right along with it. But we're not going to sit back and wait for everyone else to catch up."
C-COR.net is among the new competition, having started up its service management division a little more than a year ago when it acquired convergence.com. Since then, it has built up the business and now manages 17,000 subscribers across 16 markets in its Atlanta network operations center. It has also been busy in deployment services, setting up cable modem termination systems in various clients' networks, according to Bill Carlson, director of strategic development for C-Cor.net's Broadband Management Services Group.
Carlson says the prime customers are operators in tier two and tier three markets that do not have the scale to be able to whip up high-speed data service and stay competitive. "There is a large push in the marketplace certainly with things like the AOL-Time Warner merger," he says. "Smaller operators are really feeling the pressure that multiple access is going to be the way of the future. But they often don't have the resources to deploy these services on their own so they are looking for help."
C-COR has found operators are most interested in its monitoring and operation center.
"I think our strongest growth area is going to be in our network operation center and call center," Carlson says. "I think the network management is the most mysterious for them."
C-COR's aim is to double the total subscribers managed from the center by the end of 2001. As with fellow competitors, the goal "is to become a full life-cycle provider-a one-stop shop," he says.
Similarly, there is no shortage of business for Marconi Service-the operation is growing 40 percent annually right now, according to Shane McClelland, Marconi's vice president of marketing services for the Americas. Marconi Services was born last year when Marconi plc emerged from the former London-based GEC Co.
"We have got more opportunity than there are good deals," he says. "There's just a huge demand for designing, building and operating networks...we are getting them coming in the door."
McClelland thinks with platforms now standardized, vendors don't gain the big speed lead on each other as they once did, and customers don't see a market difference between competitors. So the focus is on helping the network operator choose, install and run the gear, rather than the gear itself.
"They don't care-they want to know how you are going to solve their problem," McClelland says. "You are not going to win their business just by selling them the biggest ATM switch."
With estimates there will be almost 2,000 new network competitors entering the market per year, another factor is how fast they can light up, he adds. To gain a market foothold, new service providers have to set up quickly, and they often don't have time to go hunting for their own in-house technical staff.
"They need to get to market fast-it gets to the point where they almost don't need the best products possible, they need it fast," McClelland says.
Marconi has also created its so-called E-nable program, which offers individual service packages to fit certain industries. Rather than overwhelm clients with a list of 1,000 service options, medical Intranet network providers see a menu of items fitting their needs, while CLECs see items better suited toward consumer product offerings.
"It's basically taking the angst and anxiety away, because a lot of the time people don't know what they want," McClelland says. "It helps the customers make decisions."
In addition, a new bureau the services division recently launched works on helping network customers knit together gear from various makers into a coherent system.
"What I see is these high-level designs that are very good, but when you get down into the guts you find the gotchas," McClelland says. "There is tremendous need to plan, design and operate networks and there is a huge shortage of the technical people to do that."
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