Can You Hear Me Now?

The University of Southern California engaged a leading wireless services company to assist them in developing, negotiating and implementing a long-term wireless strategy to achieve the university’s goals and objectives.

Institutions of higher education across the country struggle to maintain outdated telecom infrastructures. Their old systems have failing revenue streams and require heavy subsidies from already overburdened budgets. Furthermore, increasingly sophisticated technologies and users demand bandwidth and convenience. Students, faculty and staff universally complain of limited reception and accessibility.

The traditional approach to this problem, including landlines and heavy infrastructure investment, is outdated and often stymied by complex college and university bureaucracy. Moreover, telecom investments are usually expensive, require heavy retrofitting, and can threaten the architectural integrity of revered buildings. Getting buy-in for large-scale infrastructure improvements is challenging at best.

Wireless offers the solution. Wireless services are changing the way society operates in personal and professional contexts. No longer in its infancy, wireless telecom service is a proven technology with security safeguards uniquely suited to campus environments.

The benefits of wireless services are obvious.

• Enhanced wireless coverage – By placing wireless sites in strategic locations across campus, the wireless providers are able to fill in the gaps in their networks, providing complete and enhanced wireless coverage – including voice, data and video – for all campus dwellers. Wireless phone users are then able to place calls from any location on campus with deeper penetration, stronger signals and no "dead" spots.
• Infrastructure for new technologies – Many schools with wireless networks currently in place were forced to spend their own funds to lay the foundation for the technology. Wireless providers will now spend the capital to lay the necessary infrastructure for new wireless technologies. The school can capitalize on that infrastructure by offering a Wireless Broadband network, 3G and other leading-edge technologies. These technologies offer a tremendous marketing tool for the admissions process.
• New academic applications – Technology departments at colleges and universities can use the wireless network to create new applications such as virtual whiteboards, advances in research techniques, shared calendars, and the use of computers as phones with free long-distance service.
• Decrease space pressure on existing computer labs – Allowing students to connect to e-mail and the Internet from any location on campus decreases the demand on existing desktop computers in the computer labs on campus.
• Consolidate wireless phone plans – The school will have the opportunity to negotiate new wireless phone plans for its faculty and staff, and will save significant dollars by consolidating contracts and minutes.
• Stealth-ing or camouflaging – Wireless providers are responsible for protecting the architectural integrity of the campus. Through the use of stealth-ing techniques such as hiding the antennas and corresponding equipment in signs, flagpoles, light poles, and even inside parapet walls on the top of buildings, the sites are undetectable to passers-by.
• No out-of-pocket costs – Wireless providers provide all the capital to plan, build, stealth and commission the sites.
• Substantial revenue generation – Wireless providers pay a monthly licensing fee for each site they place on the campus over the course of the entire agreement. Additional sources of revenue include network connectivity, marketing fees, and other ancillary revenues. In these budget-constrained times, a substantial revenue stream that does not require any initial capital outlay on behalf of the school is a way to protect valuable campus programs and services that might otherwise be terminated.

Several schools have undertaken similar projects with the wireless providers. The University of Southern California (USC) engaged a leading wireless services company to assist USC in developing, negotiating and implementing a long-term wireless strategy to achieve the university’s goals and objectives.

"We worked with knowledgeable professionals who really knew the ins and outs of this new venture," said Mary Hayakawa, director, University Real Estate, USC. "Consequently, the project has achieved an astonishing level of success, including the negotiation and implementation of 11 wireless sites on campus, which will yield USC license-fee revenues of approximately $8 million over a 10-year period."

Of course, wireless providers are happy with this new opportunity, as well. By working with professionals with expertise in this area – professionals who already work within the college/university market – wireless carriers can now approach campuses that were previously perceived as impenetrable entities. In short, instituting a master wireless plan on a college or university campus provides tremendous benefits to the entire school community and fosters a win-win situation for all parties involved.

Eric Ham is vice president, and a key member of the wireless solution group and critical facilities group, of the Northern California region for Trammell Crow Company, a commercial real estate services firm. He can be reached at (415) 986-1900 or via e-mail at eham@trammellcrow.com.

Jason Warner is senior vice president and founder of the wireless solutions group at Trammell Crow Company, a commercial real estate services firm. He can be reached at (213) 330-2720 or via e-mail at jwarner@trammellcrow.com.