Businesses Thin to HarvardNet for Bundled Broadband and Hosting Services - Brief Article

ISP Business, Sept, 2000

HarvardNet announced that 1RoofRealty, edu.com, and Culture Connection chose its convenient, all-in-one e-business service plan -- a unique blend of bundled high-speed digital subscriber line (DSL) Internet access and advanced Web hosting services -- to help propel them to growth while optimizing the on-line experience for their agents, customers, and users.

These diverse businesses -- a residential real estate brokerage, a shopping service for students, and a Web site linking communities with cultural affinity -- realized they needed full control of their development environment to deliver a premium on-line experience. They also found that there was a significant cost advantage to collocation rather than building and staffing an in-house facility. With unique business models and target audiences, each ultimately turned to HarvardNet for its robust network, hosting flexibility, and built-in security.

"Thousands of businesses have recognized the value of HarvardNet's broadband DSL network and fiber optic backbone connected to an advanced data center for hosting content," said Joe Bartlett, vice president of marketing at HarvardNet. "It's our unique Internet infrastructure combined with Web hosting that allows us to provide a killer suite of broadband communication and content delivery that e-businesses are demanding."

From its 20,000 square foot Web operations center in Boston, HarvardNet offers a range of collocation options, including rack, locked cabinets, and locked cages; 24x7 monitoring and site security; a 100 percent Cisco-powered network; and dual power grids and uninterrupted power system (UPS).

After evaluating multi-vendor alternatives, 1RoofRealty, edu.com, and Culture Connection embraced HarvardNet's all-in-one e-business service.

1RoofRealty, a residential real estate brokerage, leverages the Web to bring more information to buyers in Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. 1RoofRealty houses several Intel-based servers running Redhat Linux in HarvardNet's facility. The broker's Web site delivers a range of interactive content for buyers and sellers, including property listings with full-motion video walkthroughs, a property research database, neighborhood price comparisons, residential environmental disclosures, mortgage qualification services, and e-auctions of properties.

edu.com, an on-line shopping and information service exclusively for college students, co-locates 26 servers running on a Gigabit network infrastructure in a secure WebCage in HarvardNet's data center. At edu.com students from 2,700 colleges and universities nationwide can shop online for computers, software, textbooks, phone and Internet service, banking, credit cards, and student loans. In addition, there are resources that provide help in buying decisions.

Culture Connection, a Web site that connects communities with cultural affinity, has its own 6300 dual-XEON Dell NT-based servers in HarvardNet's data center and provides members with free e-mail, free Web page services, forums, message boards, news, and feature stories. It recently launched an online community for Philippine Americans called www.pinoypower.com. And, it will soon deliver streaming video and audio.