The entree to MDUs, hotels

Cisco router coupled with CAIS software delivers easy-to-use solution

There's a market for high-speed data service in hotels, offices and multiple dwelling units, and networking giant Cisco Systems is in the process of acquiring CAIS Software Solutions from CAIS Internet to tap it.

CAIS has carved a niche with software that is "a very necessary piece of the infrastructure when a service provider is wiring up a hotel or MDU," said David Schwartz, Cisco's director of new market development.

It could be the final piece of infrastructure Cisco needs to become an end-to-end provider to those markets, Schwartz said. "This technology is going to be used with our Ethernet products, our wireless products, our cable and DSL products," he said. "Our cable group has already taken the technology and is working on solutions based on it."

One of those solutions could be the newly minted uBR7100 router that the company has aimed at smaller markets, including MDUs. "You will be hearing more about that," said a Cisco source. "The initial box is designed to go into that space."

That space would include a small Cisco router such as the uBR7100 connected to multiple sites with access via CAIS software.

"With the MDU and hospitality markets, different service providers want to use different access methods. Cisco wants to play in all of them, and we felt that an independent platform that wasn't coupled to any specific technology - like the one that CAIS Soft had - would fit the strategy very well," Schwartz said.

The market isn't necessarily paved with gold bricks, although there is potential, said David Simpson, senior vice president of R&D and regional operations for On Command, a service provider that uses CAIS Software to deliver high-speed access.

"We believe there's a future for it. We believe with the right economics we could make it work," Simpson said.

Including moving the familiar - at least to hotel guests - On Command service to MDUs? "That's something we're not talking about now. We might be going into that area," Simpson hedged.

If so, the CAIS (soon-to-be Cisco) software might fit the delivery bill.

"To the extent that [Cisco tries] to take that same technology and incorporate it into other products and services that might make it more broadly available and lower the price, that's probably good for us," Simpson said.

CAIS has quietly shifted its focus from the hospitality market to MDUs, said Steve Nye, president of CAIS Software.

"Hotels are a little easier to see the opportunity initially. There are a lot of players and service providers, but if you look at the worldwide market, MDUs just shadow the hotel space," he said. "Maybe 80% of the market potential worldwide is going to be more MDU space than hotel space."

Cisco will use its existing customer base to deliver to that market, Schwartz said. "Certainly we will be working with the larger carriers, the CLECs, ILECs, those who are interested in attacking the market," he said. "One of the reasons that CAIS Soft Solutions was chosen was they not only have the product side, but they have this deployment side. They've spent the last year or so very focused."

That focus included developing software that makes it painless for the end user to quickly get up to speed with a remote connection.

"This is particularly important in a hospitality situation where you check into a hotel, take out your laptop, plug it into the Ethernet jack or whatever jack they make available to you, and without caring how your PC is configured, you can log into the network," Nye said.

That, he said, is critical in the hospitality industry and "useful in the MDU market."

Also attractive is CAIS' forced portal. "When you first log into the system, no matter what your browser or home page is set for, you will be shown a Web page that represents the home page of the property owner," he said.

This presents a revenue opportunity for advertisers before the user clicks away to Internet access - for a charge.

The CAIS software also can throttle data speeds so "the service provider [can] charge for the bandwidth that's going to that person and the person doesn't have to have a second telephone line to do it," Nye said.