InCoax Networks and PCs for People ensure digital inclusion in Texas affordable housing complex
Lund, Sweden; Kansas City, Austin, San Ramon, United States. 08 June, 2022 – PCs for People and InCoax Networks have collaborated and successfully delivered high-speed, multi-gigabit connectivity to an affordable housing complex in Pflugerville, a suburb of Austin, Texas. Stoneridge Apartments is a 256-apartment complex spanning across 13 buildings and to remain attractive to present and future tenants, it needed to ensure digital inclusion to the families eligible for a lease at Stoneridge.
By deploying fiber to each building and utilising the existing and fully functional coaxial network, previously used for satellite-TV, a fiber-like broadband performance was provided to the tenants. Tasked with delivering community-wide and in-home wireless high-speed broadband to Stoneridge Apartments with a limited budget, PCs for People needed to look beyond traditional Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) deployments to solve the problem and partnered with InCoax Networks. Preliminary calculations showed an average in-building total installation cost drop from $440 per apartment with fiber, to $125 per apartment by reusing Stoneridge Apartments’ existing coaxial cabling infrastructure.
“The installation of InCoax technology acts as an expedient and cost-effective solution to the global MDU broadband access challenge of how to deploy high-speed multi-gigabit fiber broadband,” InCoax’s head of marketing, sales and product management, Helge Tiainen, says “InCoax is delighted with the successful deployment working with PCs for People on behalf of Stoneridge Apartments. This deployment has improved the quality of day-to-day life for tenants and demonstrated that re-using existing coax infrastructure and MoCA Access can be a key complement to fiber in bringing gigabit and multi-gigabit networking to any MDU.”
Through partnering with PCs for People, Stoneridge Apartments now has symmetrical high-speed Internet access of 1 Gbps, thanks to PCs for People’s application of InCoax Networks’ MoCA Access 2.5 fiber access system.
“We are impressed with the performance and how well the InCoax system offers a perfect tie-in with our mission to support digital inclusion and provide connectivity to all households regardless of income,” PCs for People’s executive director Tom Esselman, says “Efforts such as ours are essential today, where it is increasingly difficult to function in society without the best possible technologies and high-speed Internet connectivity. I’m told the building complex upgrade has had a remarkable impact on decreasing apartment vacancy rate, which has plunged from 50% to less than 11%.”
The incoming trunk fiber was connected to the 13 main buildings with individual fiber cables through a fiber switch. Control Units (DPU) at each building extended the fiber to the apartments using the existing coaxial network to provide high-speed broadband to the tenants.
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