One Community will link Shaker LaunchHouse and nearby homes and businesses to its fiber network, creating a neighborhood with Internet access 1,000 times faster than normal.
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LaunchHouse co-founder Todd Goldstein (left) explains the new fiber Internet connection to Senator Sherrod Brown, who visited one of the LaunchHouse entrepreneur homes on Monday. The lights of the former car dealership are about to burn a whole lot brighter--especially as seen from the tech community of Northeast Ohio.
OneCommunity, the nonprofit group that manages a powerful fiber-optic network in northern Ohio, will announce today the creation of its first "fiberhood"--a neighborhood of ultra-fast Internet connections---with LaunchHouse at its core.
Already, the laptops and tablets inside the business incubator connect to the Internet at speeds 1,000 times faster than the typical home or business enjoys.
In an historic first, OneCommunity is extending that super broadband to homes on nearby Chelton Road, where several LaunchHouse entrepreneurs live in "share houses." At the same time, it's alerting nearby businesses that instantaneous downloads and file sharing awaits, should they want to join the new neighborhood.
The project is limited in scope, but some are already talking about a startup village akin to what Google created in Kansas City, when it laced an ordinary street with gigabit-speed fiber and induced a startup community to bloom.
"From our perspective, that can happen here, absolutely," said Lev Gonick, the chief executive officer of OneCommunity and the former chief information officer at Case Western Reserve University. "Wherever Shaker Heights and LaunchHouse want to go, we're ready to follow."
Plans will be outlined this afternoon at OneCommunity's annual meeting, which is taking place at LaunchHouse at 4 p.m. and is open to the public. Those eager to hear the news range from tech enthusiasts to business owners to real estate agents.
As Google has demonstrated, Internet speed makes a location special.
Dozens of startups have moved to a neighborhood of Kansas City from all over the country after Google endowed a single street, State Line Road, with super broadband. Observers says the KC Startup Village, as the neighborhood has come to be called, is raising Kansas City's stature in the nation's innovation economy.
OneCommunity's plan is different but bears similarities to Google Fiber.
The start of a startup village?
Fueled by federal funds and local donations, the ambitious nonprofit has built a 2,400-mile fiber network stretching from Cedar Point to the Pennsylvania border and down to Mansfield.
OneCommunity's network serves primarily institutional customers, providing high-speed Internet service to hospitals, school districts, universities and government offices.
LaunchHouse is the first partner in a plan to begin to take that service into the private sector, where many believe super broadband can stoke the economy and create jobs.
"We see that as core to the mission of OneCommunity," said Brett Lindsey, the group's chief operating officer. "The idea is that we can help drive economic development and job creation by partnering with a place like LaunchHouse."
LaunchHouse leaders sparked the partnership when they approached One Community several months ago seeking faster Internet access. The reach of the incubator has grown to include two houses on Chelton Road, where about 10 LaunchHouse associates live in houses spare of furniture but busy with white boards.
When LaunchHouse suggested the fiber connection be extended over its back fence to the entrepreneur houses, OneCommunity saw no problem. Where the network stretches from there, no one is sure. But dreams are sky high.
"We're bringing more bandwidth here than the suburbs have ever seen before," said Todd Goldstein, the chief executive of LaunchHouse and one of its three youthful managing partners. "This now becomes a sexy location. It's really game changing."
For web-based companies like Babl Media, a LaunchHouse tenant, Internet speed means money. Downloads that once consumed hours now occur in minutes or seconds, said Nick Pavlak, the 25-year-old founder of the web-design company.
No more sitting in front of computer screens waiting for files to download or for video to stream, he said. In the time it takes to snap one's fingers, a web page is loaded or a medical image is shared.
"I would say it saves us 10 hours a week, for each developer," Pavlak said. "That's really the huge advantage for us."
Sam Krichevsky, the LaunchHouse partner who pitched the idea to OneCommunity, said lots of businesses outside of the tech sphere can use that kind of power.
"What it really does, it increases productivity," he said. "And it increases visibility for us. When word started getting around the city that we have fiber Internet here, people couldn't believe it."
At Shaker Heights City Hall, city officials are unsure just what to do with the new capability but see a chance to revitalize a rundown stretch of town.
Hard-hit in the foreclosure crisis, Chelton's two shady blocks are pockmarked by vacant lots and houses in disrepair. It's also home to long-term residents and well-kept homes with character.
Conceivably, the whole street could be laced with the fiber radiating from LaunchHouse, creating new possibilities for homeowners and entrepreneurs.
"The city does have a policy that encourages home-based businesses," said Tania Menesse, Shaker's director of economic development.
Initially, she said, the city will focus its attention on busy Lee Road and a tired commercial strip that slouches into Cleveland.
"We'd like to see much more of a mixed-use environment on that street," she said. "Lee Road has not seen investment of any kind in 20 years."
There's potential now, she believes, for new offices, light manufacturing, and 3-D imaging.
Prices for connecting to the fiberhood will vary depending on the size of the customer and their needs, Gonick said. But he predicted most clients would see rates fall beneath what they pay their current Internet provider.
"It's all very new," Manesse said. "But when you have the bandwidth, and the partners, the building blocks are there."
A bit breathlessly, she said, "The fiber is on the street."