Quang M. Le, MBA

What may have been lost in all the news about the housing market crisis is that the commercial real estate market has been hit even worse. Some metro areas have reported vacancy rates upwards of 30%. With businesses downsizing or “right-sizing”, there is an abundance of office and retail space available and property managers are desperate to fill them. Now the burning question is, “What makes your property more attractive than the next?” Companies are now looking to streamline their business operations and to reduce overhead so they can function more efficiently. Having a technological advantage and marketing that differentiation will bring new customers in. And this is where FTTP and FiOS/U-Verse will help. This technology brings a fiber optic pipeline directly to the property to deliver unprecedented bandwidth. Businesses are more tech savvy and look for a reliable broadband connection to not only conduct day-to-day business transactions, but to upload documents and videos and as a means of a redundancy check for more dedicated circuits. FiOS/U-Verse provides a great solution for both at a fraction of what a T1 line would cost. Aimed at small to medium business customers, having such a connection at a potential real estate location should be a necessity, not a luxury. But with that being said, tenants cannot make this distinction without the marketing collaboration between the commercial real estate property management company and the local provider of fiber-to-the-premise incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC), whether it be Frontier, Verizon, or AT&T. Joint marketing and sales efforts by both parties will lend to a greater acquisition rate and lead to better retention of the tenant. Marketing strategies can range from co-branding on the property managements website to signage outside the property promoting “FiOS or U-Verse” is here to dedicated relationship managers to educate existing tenants out the advantages of the products. The property has an amenity that is coveted by today’s data-intense businesses. Businesses will benefit from reduced overhead costs and a great product that is future-proof for all their telephony needs.