SpringNet eyes small-business pilot program

As Suddenlink celebrates its launch this month of gigabit high-speed Internet service in Nixa, City Utilities of Springfield is developing a small-business program downtown to deliver faster speeds to startups via SpringNet Broadband.

Now in a pilot stage at the Kresge building at the corner of South Avenue and McDaniel Street, the program is designed to offer high-speed broadband to small businesses in downtown and potentially other areas of the city.

The effort represents a change of heart for CU’s broadband division, which has traditionally focused on bandwidth for institutional businesses, such as Mercy, Expedia and Springfield Public Schools. Now, CU and SpringNet Broadband’s new director see high-speed access as an economic development tool.

“We’ve begun to work very closely with the chamber and some other folks with IDEA Commons and some of the efforts downtown,” said SpringNet Broadband Director Jeff Bertholdi, who took the post in February. “We are in the early stages of adding a new, very targeted program for small businesses in specific areas of town. Right now, downtown is our first focus.”

Initial rough boundaries are between Elm Street and Chestnut Expressway, and Grant and National avenues. He said about 50 buildings already have access to SpringNet, and about 20 small businesses could be eligible for the program. Estimated monthly costs for businesses are $100-$200 per month, and Bertholdi said qualifying guidelines for the discounted service are being drawn up. The entry-level SpringNet plans for businesses typically start at $300 per month.

Jim Michels, owner of downtown co-working space The Creative Foundry, is among the early adopters in SpringNet’s pilot program. He said high-speed access in center city could make the area a magnet for tech startups.

“We need to have a place where an individual who wants to start a business can come to a co-working center – and there’s three of them now – and get gigabit Internet. Then, when he gets like his third employee, he needs to move to a small office, like the Holland building, where he could rent 800 square feet or 1,200 square feet and get gigabit Internet,” Michels said. “Then, when he hires his 10th employee and wants to get his own location, he can move out and get gigabit Internet.”

Michels, who had service through Mediacom and U-Link, discontinued Mediacom for the chance to take on SpringNet. Partly because he runs his Streamix LLC software company remotely and his 22 Creative Foundry members depend on access, Michels prefers to have two systems in place should one go down. Paying $150 a month for SpringNet instead of $60 a month for Mediacom, he said the extra expense is worth it.

“For instance, 80 (megabits per second) takes care of most of the stuff, most of the time. If you are getting 80 to 100 Mbps, you’re getting really good service for a business,” Michels said. “But if you’ve got 25 people all working on stuff or if you are using some very intensive stuff, you will notice a difference.”

At Creative Foundry, videographers store high-definition files in a drop box on the cloud and download the videos to edit. Michels said typical download speeds were fine, but uploading back to the cloud under his old setup could drag.

“It would say the estimated completion time was 26 hours. It makes video work impractical with cloud-based storage,” he said. “Now, you might get 400 to 600 Mbps, go to upload the same thing to the cloud, take a bathroom break and come back and you’re done.”

Services with 1 gigabit per second are roughly 100 times faster than traditional broadband.

“If you make this bandwidth regularly available in center city and at IDEA Commons, we can attract small technology companies,” he said. “It is an economic development tool.”

That’s what makes IDEA Commons a prime starting point, Bertholdi said.

Missouri State University’s center city initiative on 88 acres is focused on fostering innovation, design, entrepreneurship and the arts. Key facilities are the Jordan Valley Innovation Center, Missouri State Highway Patrol Crime Lab and The eFactory business incubator. Entrepreneurs in the incubator have said typical Internet speeds are 80 Mbps for upload and download.

Allen Kunkel, JVIC director and MSU’s associate vice president for economic development, said Mediacom provides Internet to The eFactory, but it’s switching to the Missouri Research and Education Network, aka MoRENet, which serves MSU’s main campus. Still, Kunkel considers SpringNet a key partner in tenant-recruitment at IDEA Commons.

Ryan Mooney, Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce senior vice president of economic development, has identified a gap between the emerging startup community and demand for higher speeds.

“Downtown Springfield is quickly becoming a destination for startups and (information technology) firms, and broadband will be a critical piece of making that a reality,” Mooney said via email. “Anything we, as a region, can do to have faster and cheaper Internet access will be beneficial to creating quality jobs.”

In Nixa, Suddenlink is investing through its $250 million Operation GigaSpeed infrastructure plan across the provider’s 16-state footprint. The Springfield bedroom community joins Greenville and Rocky Mount, N.C., and College Station and Bryan, Texas as the first cities to access Suddenlink’s gigabit speeds.