Apartment residents today expect high-speed Wi-Fi in their units and throughout the community. But for apartment owners with out-of-date internet service and wiring, this might seem like a prohibitively expensive upgrade.
In a post on the Multifamily Insiders blog, Anthony Jason, CEO of Fiber Stream, an internet solutions provider to the apartment industry, explains that with the right business strategy, updating internet and Wi-Fi can almost immediately pay for itself and more.
Jason points out that local internet service providers often have little incentive to offer the most cutting-edge service. For example, many are still using coaxial cable instead of Cat 5e cable or fiber for last-mile wiring into the individual units.
Therefore, apartment owners need to find full-service internet providers that can implement enterprise-class Wi-Fi throughout the community. “With current technologies, this is now available and can be implemented in just a few weeks,” Jason writes. “If done with the right business strategy, it ends up being 100 percent resident-funded.”
To make high-speed Wi-Fi a revenue generator, Jason suggests offering free high-speed internet for the first six months of the lease. After that, include internet as a part of the utility billing. He suggests a monthly price of $30 per unit.