After hitting it big two years ago with the promise of high-speed home cable modems, @Home Network has been stuck waiting for the major roll-out because of upgrade delays on local cable networks. But in a major gamble to stay in the game, @Home signed an agreement Monday with Teleport Communications Group, a nationwide fiber-optic phone provider, to open an electronic front door to a completely new and necessary market for @Home: businesses.
"The market for high-speed data in businesses is very large. It would be imprudent for a high-speed provider [such as @Home] not to be involved with it," says analyst Bruce Leichtman at The Yankee Group. But with the cable already laid and modems unnecessary, it remains to be seen if @Home has got anything to offer in the fierce corporate intranet market.
The system, called @Work, works over TCG's wide network, including corporations like Merrill Lynch and Fidelity. @Home spokesman Matt Wolfrom describes the scale of the move: "It makes @Work nationwide in a heartbeat." TCG has 7,000 miles of fiber-optic cable in 57 major metropolitan areas, including New York, Boston, and LA.
With the fiber connections, @Work will pipe two suspiciously familiar applications onto the networks: "corporate casting" - basically videoconferencing abilities - and telecommuting support. The service will also prove a browser component, much like the @Home service now.
The advantage of the deal for businesses, says Wolfrom, lies in TCG's local hubs for data access. "We have these regional data centers all across the country. So instead of pinging all across the country to get your mail, you can get it locally."
Though businesses may not be lured by the bells and whistles, @Work hopes to attract them with at least unfettered access. "It's a relatively underutilized network," claims Don Hutchison, vice president of @Work. "On a pragmatic basis ... you've got a bright new toy without too many users." Domestic cable-modem competitors like Time Warner's RoadRunner and U S WEST's Highway1 are also looking to follow @Home's lead out of the house, says Leichtman, "but nobody else has made a splash like this."
But TCG has its own plans, which include offering a browser that could directly conflict with @Work's offerings. "Yes, [@Work] will be competing with TCG's own product SURFnet," says TCG spokeswoman Tracy Corrington. "I don't really care about [@Work] too much. For us, this is a revenue opportunity."
From the Wired News New York Bureau at FEED magazine.
