In the world of real estate development, master-planned communities have long been known as places where one finds “the good life,” including amenities such as golf courses, community swimming pools, park land, and tennis courts. While those features continue to be popular, developers are discovering that many prospective buyers are now craving a new type of amenity – and that is connectivity.

Call it access to the latest communications technology – whether it’s fast internet, online gaming or Video-on-Demand. From a developer’s perspective, it really means one thing – deploying high-bandwidth fiber networks all the way to each home in the communities they build.

“Fiber has quickly become an amenity homebuyers are seeking out in communities across the nation,” says George L. Kiser, Managing Partner of Kellswater Bridge Development, which is creating a 400-home community in Kannapolis, North Carolina. “In fact, one of the best sales tools we have is letting prospective buyers know that we have Fiber to the Home (FTTH). Buyers are impressed to be moving into a community that is ready for virtually unlimited bandwidth.”

Recent improvements in the technology now make it possible to connect very high bandwidth fiber cable, at reasonable cost, directly to homes – thereby enabling transmission speeds 20 to 30 times faster than the fast speeds available today over copper-based DSL or cable modem. This is particularly true for greenfield developments where installation of fiber-optic networks is normally a simpler task than it is for overbuilding established neighborhoods. And the potential bandwidth for installed fiber is almost unlimited, as improved technologies keep finding ways to get more bandwidth out of the fiber.

“We often refer to Fiber to the Home as ‘next generation’ broadband, but in reality there is no ‘next’ about it. This technology has already arrived, and consumers are loving it,” says Joe Savage, President of the Fiber-to-the-Home Council, an industry group.

Indeed, nearly two million American households are now receiving internet, video and/or voice services over direct fiber optic connections. The number of FTTH households has doubled in each of the past two years, and is poised for further growth.

While Verizon has received a great deal of attention for its leadership in FTTH through its Fiber Optic Service (FiOS), one of the leading markets for new FTTH networks has been in master-planned communities, like the one Kiser is developing in North Carolina.

Kiser says an increasing number of potential homebuyers know that high-bandwidth applications such as HDTV, Video-on-Demand, and online gaming mean that today’s networks are not going to be suitable for tomorrow – unless, that is, there is a fiber connection all the way to the home.

“We aim not only to offer a great amenity but also to future-proof our community,” Kiser adds. “Residents will be able to embrace future services we can’t even imagine, using the virtually unlimited bandwidth available only with fiber.”

Because real estate developers are reluctant to get into the telecom business, many are turning to companies like Connexion Technologies to provide a turnkey solution – everything from installing and maintaining the fiber-optic network to managing the service providers that deliver internet, television, telephone, and other services once the network is up and running.

Connexion Technologies, founded and run by Glen Lang, is a leading FTTH company that currently operates its networks in over 170 communities nationwide. The company’s aggressive strategy in the real estate market has made it the second largest FTTH provider after Verizon. Connexion Technologies is projecting to serve more than 250,000 residential units by the end of the 2007 fiscal year.

“We understand what the developers want, and that is an FTTH system that can be modified to fit the needs of their particular community,” says Lang. “Whether it’s the types of television channels they want, the transmission speeds of the internet service, a community intranet or security monitoring – we can give them exactly what they are looking for and enable them to keep the prices lower than what their homebuyers would otherwise pay if they dealt separately with other providers of these services.”

“The convenience and pricing is a big draw,” he adds. “But the homebuyers can also see that they are getting a network that is capable of keeping up with state-of-the-art technology,” he adds. “The system is built to grow to accommodate IPTV, Video-on-Demand, and applications supporting telecommuting, telemedicine, distance learning, you name it. That’s the beauty of fiber.”

Another real estate developer that is leading the transition to Fiber to the Home is SunCal Companies, which has thousands of residential lots in various stages of development across California, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico. According to the company’s marketing materials, Fiber to the Home is a major amenity in nearly every one of them.

SunCal partners with Greenfield Communications of Dana Point, California, for its turnkey FTTH solutions. Mike Powers, the founder, President and CEO of Greenfield, saw the potential for bringing Fiber to the Home to planned communities several years ago when he was working for a company that was building utility systems in real estate developments.

“It became evident that the telecom piece was a more profitable deal than the other utilities. We had a good little niche here,” says Powers. “But that was also the time when the tech bubble burst, and the owners wanted out of telecom.”

Accordingly, Powers started Greenfield and began to work with SunCal in developing a Fiber to the Home amenity for its residential developments and managing the systems once they are completed.

“We are the ISP, the phone company, the cable company,” he says. “We do all the tech support, customer service, the whole bit.”

Powers says it didn’t take long for both companies to realize that they were on to something.

“SunCal understood that by deploying these infrastructures, they were creating places where people really wanted to move,” he says. “Many times you get homebuyers that recognize that bandwidth is a big thing these days and they need to have it. So when they see the FTTH they say ‘OK, this is cool, I’ve got it.’“

“But a bigger driver is not so much the homebuyers themselves but their kids. We watch families go through sales offices and all of the sudden a 13-year-old kid says ‘oh man, it’s Fiber to the Home.’ And the next thing you know the parents are sitting down and buying a house.” FTTH has a reputation among online gamers of improved online game response – a critical edge in multiplayer games.

Powers says that in addition to helping sell homes, one of the other things developers like about FTTH is that the systems don’t require electric power in any of the outside plant, nor do they require above ground pedestals, which increases both the reliability and the aesthetic qualities of the systems.

Today, Greenfield Communications has more than 5,000 customers on its FTTH network, and is actively designing and constructing projects in 40 planned communities involving 275,000 homes. For FTTH customers in these developments, Greenfield will not only build the systems but operate them once they are completed.

A FTTH Council survey of home buyers and home developers estimated that a direct fiber connection adds an average of more than $5,000 to the price of a home. With fiber and optical equipment costs continuing to fall, that premium is getting noticed by an increasing number of residential developers.

As far as Mike Powers is concerned, there’s no longer any reason not to deploy fiber. “I’m actually amazed that any project would do copper instead of Fiber to the Home, because FTTH is actually cheaper to put in now.”  SLDT