Survey: Tenants willing to pay more for fiber optics in office buildings. (Technology).

A newly released survey of more than 800 information technology professionals nationwide indicates that the rapid adoption of advanced Internet applications is driving businesses to demand access to fiber optic networks at their office sites.

A large majority of those surveyed said their businesses are willing to pay a premium for office space served by high-speed data communications infrastructure, and more than half said they might consider relocating to new space if such infrastructure does not become available.

The survey was conducted by Yipes Communications, Inc., the defining provider of scalable Ethernet services. Yipes' gigabit optical networks serve customers in 21 markets coast-to-coast.

Yipes' survey uncovered hard data on the growing value of high-bandwidth connectivity options at business locations:

64 percent of IT professionals who replied said access to fast, fiber-based data communication networks was "extremely important" or "very important."

24 percent of respondents said they already insist that their businesses lease space with fiber infrastructure in place to support high-bandwidth applications; another 41 percent said they will insist on such availability within the next 12 to 18 months.

62 percent of those responding said they will or might consider leaving already leased space if their infrastructure is not upgraded.

58 percent said their business would pay 1 percent to 5 percent more for office space to get access to flexible, high-bandwidth services; 15 percent said their businesses would pay 6 percent to 10 percent more.

Yipes' survey confirms and updates a study published by the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) International in 2000, Critical Connections, which concluded that building owners "believe there is a strong connection between advanced telecom features, improved tenant retention, and marketability of their buildings." The BOMA report concluded, "if you are going after large office tenants, your building must have high speed Internet capabilities."

"In today's networked economy, the old real estate saw 'location, location, location,' must be amended to 'location, bandwidth, location,"' said Eric Yopes, principal of Foursquare Capital and former vice chairman of Shorenstein Co., a premier national real estate company. "Access to fast, flexible data networks has become as essential to many businesses as proximity to customers, transportation and skilled labor."

"E-commerce, customer and supplier extranets, Webbased marketing, videoconferencing and a host of other applications require ample bandwidth that only optical networks can provide," said Ron Young, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Yipes. "More and more companies are willing to pay for access to innovative service providers because they know that legacy phone networks just won't do the job."