The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently released a Report and Order and Declaratory Ruling in the Matter of Improving Competitive Broadband Access to Multiple Tenant Environments. The report bans a number of items relative to marketing agreements and wire usage in apartment communities and other multiple tenant environments.

• Beginning April 27, 2022 – no new contracts may be entered with graduated revenue share arrangements.
• After September 26, 2022 – no graduated revenue share payments can be made under existing contracts that are in effect as of 4/27/22. Revenue share paid through 9/26/22 should be okay.

Many RealtyCom clients have these types of graduated scale or sliding scale revenue share agreements in place today. The FCC did not ban revenue share in general or other forms of owner compensation, nor against marketing agreements in general. However, in order to continue to receive revenue payments those agreements will need to be amended and changed from a sliding scale to a flat revenue-sharing scale.

In addition to the ban on sliding scale revenue share, the FCC also ruled that providers entering into exclusive marketing agreements will have to disclose the […]

Aaron Nygard’s expertise is one of the reasons our clients rely on us to ensure that low voltage design plans are executed correctly. Aaron is a Field Engineer in Northern California, and his responsibilities include onsite inspections of telecom infrastructure and cable installations during the construction of new multifamily developments. 

During an inspection of a project in Emeryville, Aaron discovered that the recently installed CAT5e ethernet cable did not meet the specifications outlined in the service provider contract to install CAT6 wiring.

To the casual eye, both cables look very similar and have the similar appearing termination points, but the biggest difference is CAT6 performs better and offers greater bandwidth at certain distances with the potential to support 10x the bandwidth of CAT5e. The net impact – of possibly having limited bandwidth speeds to certain units – would be obvious to residents within the affected units. 

CAT6 wires are preferred for future-proofing multifamily developments, especially given the density of 500+ residential units with thousands of devices connected to the internet.  

By making this discovery during his first inspection, Aaron gave our client the opportunity to correct the matter and […]