SMB Networks / (none) /

The company town: 2002

First of a two-part series

By Toni Kistner
Net.Worker, 03/05/01

If you're still skeptical whether telework will impact the way we work, live and do business on a grand scale, and that technology is the primary driver behind all the action, better sit down for this.

Today, 32 million people telework at least one day a week, a number expected to increase to 40 million by 2004, according to a just-published report from Cahners In-Stat. That's 28% of the total workforce, 28% of small business workers, and 10% of enterprise community. And not surprisingly, Cahners found that 70% of home workers have Internet access. (Which in turn begs the question: What are the remaining unconnected 30% actually doing?)

Regardless, numbers like these are bound to change a lot of things. Take housing. Take community development. Take traffic congestion. They will also spur a lot of technology companies into action.

Look at Nortel Networks. In collaboration with California State University at Fresno (CSUF) and the Property Development Group, Nortel is getting set to break ground on the first dedicated telework community, or what it's calling an "eVillage."

Until now, master-planned communities dotted primarily the Southwest, Texas, and Florida. They were residential developments built from the ground up with golf courses, parks, waterways, shopping, schools, hospitals, the works. Some are equipped with DSL and fiber networks to deliver telecommunications and data services, but overall, residents either live in a commutable distance from their jobs, live lives of leisure, or are retired.

Nortel and its partners plan to build a community for teleworkers 180 miles from Silicon Valley in southern Maderas County, just outside of Fresno. Situated along the San Juaquin River, the 15,000 -acre Rio Mesa community will comprise 30,000 single-family homes, housing 110,000 people. Plans include two golf courses, shopping centers, and a 300-room hotel. "Learning centers" will combine schools and telework centers, bringing working parents and their kids together during the day, say for lunch.

Nortel's Global Professional Services (GPS) will provide a high-speed voice, video and data network to tie teleworkers to the enterprise, en masse. Fiber to the curb means homes will be equipped with 10M bit/sec Internet connections, and a variety of business services, such as multiple phone lines, videoconferencing, wireless LANs, VPNs, online PC backup.

"We'll be putting in a broadband infrastructure similar to putting in public works, and using it as a way to attract telecommuters as well as Internet-savvy people," says Greg Marrow, Nortel's director of portfolio marketing.

Property Development Group, which owns the property, will contract with homebuilders for the housing, and will likely work with CSUF on their design. In terms of the community, CSUF will ensure telework's best practices are put in place, and work with the California Transportation Authority to develop studies that show the impact the village has on traffic.

Telework is big business at Nortel: 20% of its workforce teleworks at least one day a week. The company receives 1,500 telework applications from employees a month, and is able to place 1,000 of these workers in telework environments, which reflects savings of $20 million annually. But in Silicon Valley, homes are too expensive and too few, making employee housing a big issue. "A house that sells for a million in the Valley will go for $120,000 in Maderas County," says Dennes Coombs, owner of Property Development Group.

Nortel will joint-market the e-Village with Coombs' company, and market directly to its own employees. Should they bite, Nortel may find itself with a company town of sorts on its hands. Otherwise, Rio Mesa will serve as a Nortel showcase for the on-site service provider (OSP) market, an emerging class of providers focused on multi-dwelling, multi-tenant units, multi-hospitality units, as well as master-planned communities that Nortel hopes to sell its equipment to.

Next week, we'll look at how the grass-roots efforts of individual communities are bringing jobs to the workers, rather than forcing the workers to go in search of jobs.