It’s hard to tell which office buildings have the best connectivity, making it nearly impossible to determine which locations are a better fit for tenants with data-heavy needs.
Not anymore.
A startup called WiredScore evaluates capacity, infrastructure, number of carriers serving a building and whether additional providers could easily come in, then assigns a Wired Certification rating.
Building owners including Hines, Jamestown and Beacon Capital are using it to differentiate assets and identify areas for capital investment, while tenants and brokers can use it as a tool to choose space that meets their needs.
Here’s how it works: Landlords hire WiredScore, which sends telecom engineers (many of them former employees of AT&T, Level 3, etc.) to spend half a day at a building. They follow fiber lines coming in from the street, through the building to risers on each floor all the way onto the roof.
Only 10% of buildings get the highest Platinum rating. The others get Gold, Silver or Certified.
“It’s best to have the most internet service providers in a building so tenants can shop around for competitive pricing,” said JD Jeske, Head of Atlanta operations for WiredScore. “We’re providing transparency to something that’s really complicated much earlier in the leasing decision.”
WiredScore launches service in Atlanta this month. Local buildings that have already achieved Wired Certification include Ponce City Market (Platinum), 1180 Peachtree (Platinum), One Glenlake (Gold) and 1001 Perimeter Summit (Gold).
WiredScore was founded in 2013 by CEO Arie Barendrecht, a former management consultant who noticed friends often grumbled about lousy internet in their offices.
The company launched as a public/private partnership with The City of New York under the administration of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a major advocate for innovation. Another early investor was Jared Kushner, who sold his majority stake to Bessemer Venture Partners and Fifth Wall Ventures last year.
Although WiredScore’s rating system doesn’t currently evaluate buildings based on common area Wifi or mobile phone coverage, those and other things like next-generation 5G ratings may be added to future scorecards.
“WiredScore will be part of that conversation going forward,” Jeske said.
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