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Place your Harris Teeter order online, go to the Town Center, and have the groceries brought to your car. Set up play dates for the kids or movie or dinner nights for the adults. Find hot spots in parks and poolside to stay connected to vital online correspondence and resources.
It’s the lifestyle you’ll find at Brambleton, the country’s first Verizon fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) community offering voice and data services since 2001 and video since 2006 to all residences, Town Center retailers, and recreational facilities including Legacy Park. Hot spots located throughout the park allow homeowners to go for a walk or run and then stop and check e-mail.
The community’s Intranet called Merchant Village keeps homeowners connected to one another via message boards, classifieds, and e-mails. Coupons, a calendar of events, and neighborhood news are among the postings on Merchant Village. Residents can be as connected as they want to be. It brings new meaning to “get to know your neighbor” without even stepping outside.
“Our ‘partnership’ with Brambleton has been an excellent one. The community prides itself on its technology leadership,” says Daniel O’Connell, national sales director for Verizon Enhanced Communities.
“Brambleton offers our residents leading-edge technology that not only enhances their daily lifestyles, but provides an opportunity to experience high-tech advantages unique to our very special community,” says Kim Adams, Brambleton’s director of marketing.
Resident to Merchant
When complete, Brambleton will have more than 6,000 residences including condominiums, townhomes, and single-family homes by Beazer Homes, Centex Homes, Gulick Group, Miller and Smith, Stanley Martin, and Winchester Homes. There’s a sense of live-work in this neighborhood, where most of the builders here also have employees living in the community, Adams says.
Seeing Brambleton unfold, gel, and continue to grow has been exciting, Adams adds. “While our partnership with Verizon on FiOS technology started as a test case, our sophisticated level of connectivity has evolved as a highly successful feature,” says Keith Brannock, technology services manager at Brambleton. “We plan on new upgrades to provide even higher speeds and other advantages to our residents. At the same time, we’ll be offering computer training and technology support as a concierge service to the community,” he says.
Residents can expect a comprehensive telecommunications package, including video service with local, premier, and music channels with more than 180 digital channels. Fiber optics offer high-speed connections with faster speeds on the horizon. Technical help is available 24/7, Brannock says.
“Technology was extremely important when we purchased in Brambleton,” says homeowner Jason Cook. “We have our home wired with an integrated media center (streaming video and music), multiple DVRs (both TiVo and Verizon’s DVR), voice-over IP, and of course a variety of computers … all running over our integrated home wiring.”
With more than 500,000 square feet of retail in this Loudoun County, VA, location, the Intranet keeps homeowners in tune with merchants’ specials and what’s playing at Ashburn’s first cinema opening soon in Brambleton. Online sales tripled in January, Adams says. Technology is taking hold here and homeowners are sharing in the rewards, she adds. These are savvy homeowners who know the value of staying connected to the outside world and the world inside Brambleton.
This may be the country’s first technologically connected community, but certainly not its last. It’s a pioneering neighborhood. “Brambleton has become a pacesetter in community connectivity. We receive calls from developers around the country who ask questions about incorporating this type of technology into their new neighborhoods,” Adams says.
More Connections
“Verizon is leveraging our experience at Brambleton and other communities to expand our FiOS program nationwide. We now work with developers in 13 states to deliver FiOS services over our FTTP network to their neighborhoods,” O’Connell says. “We are helping these developers to future proof their communities to take advantage of applications being developed.”
Among the six builders in Brambleton, which is a development of Soave Enterprises LLC, four are opening new models this year. All offer Brambleton’s state-of-the-art connectivity in a community with connections. “Finding a home with fiber to the basement and network cable run throughout was a nice plus,” says Brambleton homeowner Jason Jensen. “But having now lived with those features, I can’t imagine buying another home without them.”
