I am sure everyone is looking at the title of this article and wondering, "What the heck is DDI?" Well folks, it is my new acronym (I was in the Bell system for 20 years and we love acronyms) to replace DSL (Digital Subscriber Line). DDI is defined in the world of Joe Scotti as Distributed Digital Internet.

Let me throw another word at you that may help to understand the concept: Aggregation.

Most commercial building owners and tenants are faced with the challenge of trying to satisfy the appetite of hungry computer users who live and die using the Internet for their daily business and personal activities. With DSL's slow and painful death, businesses are left with very few, cost-effective alternatives. Satellite Access is one alternative, but this technology is very difficult to distribute in a MTU (multi-tenant), aggregated environment.

We have experienced this challenge first hand. After the failure of two regional ISP's, AUDITEL and several of the neighboring businesses in our office park were left out in the cold without a cost-effective alternative for DSL. So we came up with a plan and partnered with a local technology company. The company provided the Internet bandwidth, wired our building, and also designed and installed unlicensed wireless technology to a second building in our office park. An important part of this plan was the successful management, billing, and support for the project-which fortunately is what we do.

Thus, Digital Distributed Internet access is now deployed. It is working great and is priced similar to DSL, but without the hassles. Careful planning had to take place prior to a somewhat difficult, installation. Here is what we learned and the steps required for success.

First and foremost, you need to find a technology company willing to manage this solution. As I stated above, this management includes overseeing the installation, billing each individual commercial entity, providing the first call for support, and interfacing with the Internet Service Provider to bring quick resolution to any technical issue that arises.

Secondly, if you are the building owner, you will need to socialize and "pre-sell" the idea to your tenants. If you are just a concerned business attempting to obtain affordable Internet access, you will need to discuss the idea with your neighboring businesses to see what the level of interest is. You will need to have "pre-sold" this idea to about a half-dozen tenants, which is typically the breakeven number.

Once you have pre-sold the service to verify its economic feasibility, you can then move on to implementation.

Depending on your building structure, you can distribute this Internet bandwidth via wire (Ethernet, Category 5 cable), or wireless LAN technology, internal and external to the building.

The next step is to find a financially sound ISP who can provide T1, dedicated Internet access, into your building. It is important that you inform the ISP that you or your technology partner is planning to "resell" that connection to the commercial tenants in the building. You might be surprised at their reaction!

As a building owner, you might be thinking, "Do I really want to get into all of this to satisfy one of the requirements of my tenants?" Well, there are companies out there that you, as a building owner, can partner with to accomplish all of the above without having any of the headaches. If you go this route, just be sure to do your homework on these companies to make sure that they are financially stable and that their other clients are happy with the service they are getting.

In summary, some final words to the wise: If you are constructing a new building, remember to keep this strategy in mind when you are wiring. Also, remember that Internet bandwidth, like Long Distance services, and most Telecom related services are a commodity items now. Volume commands better pricing and more attention from the providers, so negotiate hard and long. There are some providers who specialize in multi-business tenant applications that will wire your building for "free". Just because providers are telling you there DSL is not available in your area, you can beat them to the punch with DDI!