AM3INC.COM and distribution details (Score 1)

My company offered such a service for almost 10 years in Chicago before we sold it to AM3INC.COM. I do recommend calling them. They will cut to the chase with their best offer. Tell them the President of onShore Networks sent you. Here's how it works and why I recommend not doing it yourself like so many people suggest. Distribution There are many ways to distribute internally, Ethernet (copper or fiber), xDSL, MoCA, DOCSIS (cablemodem), Wifi, and more (not worth mentioning). If you've got clean runs or are doing some sort of cabling or construction work then it's worth pulling cat5/6 cable (with fiber links between distant closets) and doing it right. The provider you hire will cover most if not all the capital costs. Obviously your building is already built so you're almost definitely best off with a DSL variant as it can use existing copper pairs (phone line wire). I suggest ADSL2+ which is under $100/unit in hardware cost (DSLAM concentrators and ADSL2+ modems). ADSL2+ does 24Mb/1.5Mb speeds which is really fine for pretty much all applications. VDSL2 is faster (100Mb/100Mb) but double the cost last I checked. Ethernet is even cheaper and faster but cabling costs will be $200 to $1000 per unit (depends on ease of paths). Wifi is a damn cool thing and fast enough for pretty much all Internet applications but it really is a mess to get it to work well in a dense and large setting. Throw in that people have their own APs and you get all sorts of radio noise screaming at each other. Some days it's awesome and other days it sucks. It is the cheapest to install and I've seen decent setups, especially if speeds are throttled a bit but as a provider it's not worth the trouble. Remember that support calls are your biggest cost. More on that... Regardless of the inside distribution, you provider would work all this out for you and mange the equipment. You want them to own and manage the equipment because you do not want to wrestle with the condo association to handle repairs, upgrades, service work when they take forever to make decisions on spending money. You also do not want to have to handle support calls. ISPs cannot avoid effective PC support for end users. These guys are available 24/7 including dispatch. They handle inside wiring, equipment, security, any bandwidth management, end user support, upstream connections, etc.. I strongly recommend buying what's called a bulk service. This means one flat fee covers the entire building. I understand why everybody commenting hates that but I lit 63 residential buildings (still have commercial ones) in Chicago and more than half were bulk. At first users don't like the idea but when they realize they get giant speeds, much higher reliability, real support, and all for 1/2 the price of anything the idiots at Comcast offer, they're sold. We typically had 95% of the units in a building using the building's bulk service within a year. They knew they were paying for it and switched and were pleased. Techie users loved getting real static IPs, even subnets, cacti (MRTG) graphs, ACLs on the switches (security), more. Plus there are bonuses that the big ISPs won't touch such as Wifi in public areas (parking lot, laundry, rec room, office), TVs in the rec room, included Internet for the office, webcams in various places. Again if you don't do bulk, you can't really get all this stuff because the provider can't be sure you're not sharing the service with others that aren't paying. You should also consider AM3 for TV service. The same sort of rules apply. They sell DirecTV and bulk is the way to go for pretty much the same reasons I give for Internet. Actually they offer bargain VOIP too. Bulk doesn't really make sense for VOIP mainly because it's super cheap anyway but also because so many people just have cell but you can do it. Internet Connections In Chicago you have a few options but today the obvious choice is fiber. Faster is better but you pay for it and it's not as cheap as in some places. Just see what providers offer you. Honestly you'll probably be happy with 50Mbps speeds but I bet it's all cheap enough where a 100Mbps link is cheap enough. 100Mbps is the sweet spot because the port is the big cost and they come in 100Mbps and 1Gbps. Again, your provider would deal with all this. They might have a wireless link option from another rooftop but fiber is the best and with 80 units you'll get a good deal anyway. Don't be fooled by the bandwidth numbers. Sharing bandwidth is not 1 to 1 (I can explain if you like) so with a 100Mbps link and 80 units you'll probably clock 60Mbps on speed tests consistently and if you distribute with ADSL2+ in the building you're limited to 24Mbps anyway. Netflix, Hulu, VOIP, go nuts, it's all great. Realize that bandwidth is the biggest single chunk of the cost but end user support is almost as costly. So don't look at what bandwidth costs from a provider and figure you can just split that cost per unit. If you're installing and running the network and taking the calls, sure. But if you want low hassle and high quality, get a company in there. With 80 units you'll get a bargain.