Hartford Business Journal

8 Hartford Business Journal • April 30, 2018 • www.HartfordBusiness.com Reporter's Notebook Matt Pilon | mpilon@HartfordBusiness.com Health Care/Bioscience, Startups & Entrepreneurs, Government/Law and Energy UTILITIES New player to roll out CT broadband service A New York company founded by veterans of the former Lightower Fiber Networks says it's preparing to make a broadband play in select areas of Con- necticut, including Hartford. GoNetspeed plans to start rolling out fiber broadband in June, with ser- vice tiers ranging from 100 megabits- per-second up to 1,000 Mbps — often referred to as gigabit-speed internet. It is targeting residents and small busi- nesses in a western portion of Hartford and West Hartford, said Tom Perrone, GoNetspeed's chief operating officer. Like many service providers that keep the exact breadth of their net- works veiled for competitive reasons, GoNetspeed isn't disclosing the exact neighborhoods where it plans to in- stall service. It also plans to launch in parts of New Haven and Bridgeport. Perrone said GoNetspeed's goal is to eventually offer service statewide. It aims to expand its offerings in cities or towns where it can get 10 percent of households to sign up. The company has already launched service in the Pittsburgh area. GoNetspeed Founder and Chairman Frank Chiaino previously founded Massachusetts-based Lightower Fiber Networks, which was acquired last year by Crown Castle in Texas for $7.1 billion. Perrone also worked for Lightower, which built a sizable fiber network in Connecticut over the years. Perrone said GoNetspeed, which is based in Rochester, New York, will build its own fiber infrastructure, mainly strung up on telephone poles, and also lease some of Crown Castle's Connecti- cut fiber, though he wouldn't disclose further details about the arrangement. To find out if GoNetspeed service will be available in your area, visit www.gonetspeed.com and punch in your address and email address. GoNetspeed has big ambitions, but it's a small upstart, with about 25 employees. Depending on its success in Con- necticut, it hopes to add as many as 15 workers in the state. Meanwhile, it's entering a market dominated by major service providers like Comcast, AT&T, Frontier and oth- ers. "This is a company starting from scratch playing against the big guys," Perrone said. Comcast recently announced it's launching a new gigabit-speed inter- net service for residential and busi- ness customers in Connecticut. The Office of Consumer Counsel's Elin Katz said it's tough to determine exactly how available affordable gigabit internet service is for residents in par- ticular, but she believes it's still rare. Katz said she's pleased to see a competitor entering the market and investing in a gigabit-speed offering. "I think it's being driven by demand," Katz said. Katz has pushed for municipal-level gigabit plans and her office issued several reports a few years ago with anecdotes of how expensive gigabit speeds were for certain businesses and others. Her office's work has drawn the ire of internet providers, which have argued that government does not belong in the broadband business. Paul Cianelli, CEO of the New Eng- land Cable & Telecommunications Association, predicted that advancing technology is going to make gigabit speeds available to many more house- holds in the coming years. "Our residential rollout is just begin- ning," Cianelli said. "I think competition is good for consumers, good for the com- panies, it keeps everyone on their toes." GoNetspeed aims to build a custom- er base with its pricing structure and what Perrone said is the value of the offering. For residential customers, the 100 Mbps service will cost $50 a month; the 500 Mbps service will cost $70; and the gigabit service would cost $90. There won't be additional charges from taxes or fees, though their will be an installation fee. In addition, GoNetspeed says it will offer a lifetime pricing guarantee to cus- tomers who buy and keep the service. The service will also be "symmetrical," meaning the upload and download speeds will be equivalent. In many types of internet service, the upload speeds are often significantly slower than the download speeds. Perrone said faster upload speeds are better for households with multiple internet-connected devices as well as online gamers. STARTUPS & ENTREPRENEURS Wallingford med device firm leads CT's 1Q VC deals A Wallingford medical device devel- oper booked Connecticut's largest ven- ture deal during the first quarter of this year, according to the latest PwC/ CB Insights MoneyTree report. Summit Street Medical, which is de- veloping an emergency auto-injection device, raised $1.9 million from Con- necticut Innovations (which kicked in $500,000) and others. That was the largest deal of the quarter, followed by $1.6 million raised by Stamford's Landsdowne Labs, which is developing biocompatible coatings and medical adhesives. Connecticut Innovations was involved in all five of the largest first quarter in-state deals. Farmington's Shoreline Biome raised $1.1 million for its development of microbiome processing technology. Venture capital dollars raised dur- ing the first quarter in Connecticut totaled $7.1 million, which was well under the $69.3 million raised in the prior year's first quarter, but higher than the $2.9 million raised in the first three months of 2016, according to MoneyTree Report data. 1Q Venture Capital Investments in CT Top 1Q Venture Deals in CT Company Headquarters Sector Amount Raised Summit Street Medical Wallingford Health care $1.86M Landsdowne Labs Stamford Industrial $1.64M Biorez New Haven Health care $1.5M Shoreline Biome Farmington Health care $1.1M Verb Energy New Haven Food & Beverages $1M Source: PwC/CB Insights MoneyTree Report A GoNetspeed crew working in Pennsylvania, where the company launched its first broadband service offerings. Connecticut is its second target. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 $0 $50 $100 $150 $200 $250 Total invested $248.5M $41.3M $2.9M $7.1M $69.3M $41.3M $2.9M $7.1M $69.3M Source: PwC/CB Insights MoneyTree Report

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