Imagine every home in your HOA community connected by a fiber optic network that offers a choice of many hundreds, if not thousands, of “channels” from all over the world, with a picture quality superior to anything available now. It would provide access to the Internet with blazing speed compared to Comcast cable or AT&T’s DSL. This same infrastructure could also support provide land phone services.

Your TVs, computers and land phones wouldn’t need all that cable and wire that snakes through your attic and perhaps even along your baseboards. All you have to do is plug in your device to an electrical outlet to get connected anywhere in your home.

A fantasy? Not really. This is where the future of home media is heading. It’s commonly called bundling. The technology to support this vision already exists, and more is on the way.

Newer companies with fresh strategies are mixing it up with aging media conglomerates like Comcast, AT&T and Time Warner. The challengers lean toward the Internet model, enabling consumers to select their own content from unlimited choices a la Google or You Tube. The other side is steeped in a tradition of pre-selecting the content we can access in our homes and is struggling to redefine its mission in response to the challenge posed by these upstart enablers.

The cost? I don’t know. But if you add up what you would pay on your own for cable or satellite TV, broadband Internet and land phone service come 2009, the available evidence indicates that a community-wide bundling alternative will cost less per month and the quality will be superior. Communities with a viable home media program that appeals to a growing number of prospective buyers who value such services will also enhance the property values within such communities.

It may prove necessary to invest in the startup of the new infrastructure. This is the pioneering path that Boca Isles South took a couple of years ago when their then-Adelphia contract expired. They installed their own fiber optic network. In effect, they cut out the middleman and became their own Cable TV and broadband Internet company, buying content directly from content providers or the growing number of resellers who represent them.

More recently, Boca Woods passed on renewing with Comcast and contracted with Hot Wire, a new enabler-type technology company which is installing a fiber optic network at no cost to Boca Woods homeowners. The company will recoup its investment in this infrastructure over time by providing a vast range of TV “channels” plus broadband Internet and land phone service that will be cheaper than any homeowner could get on their own even after Hot Wire takes its cut.

A number of other communities in West Boca are looking into similar alternatives to Comcast as their contracts also near expiration.

What direction do you think home media should take in your community?

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