Start-up space for internet intensive very small companies, freelancers and remote employees

Posted by: Liza L.

After years of promises of multi-megabit communications from major telecommunications providers, Fiber High LLC, a local 3-person outfit, is now actually delivering. By combining low-cost, no- or short-term lease, shared office space and direct links to the country's fastest public optical fiber network, Fiber High brings serious connectivity within reach of low-budget entrepreneurs and start-ups.

 "Our fiber and copper network puts 40 to 100 Mbps on every desk," says managing partner and network designer, David Gjerdrum. "For people who need to move large graphic files or databases, speed is a necessity," Gjerdrum comments. "For others, it's just plain addictive."

Fiber High's style is totally without bling. Its founders noticed that many of their business neighbors moved out of Palo Alto in search of lower cost square footage as landlords spiffed up their aging buildings and raised the rent. As Fiber High's first tenant, a computational chemist developing an 'in silico’ predictive toxicology tool with NIH SBIR funding, put it, "I don't need anything fancy, just a place I can afford to hunker down with my three servers, work on method development and grow my client base. Given the early stage of my business … I'm not in a position to sign a multi-year lease but want to focus on the commercialization stage with the flexibility to move on or expand based on changes in 'market' conditions.

The Fiber High business model is to facilitate small, creative, highly-connected communities. Top capacity at the 989 Commercial St. location is twelve cubicles housing not more than thirty people. Its server room and electrical service can accommodate about 120 rack computers in addition to the desktops. "If we're oversubscribed we'll get an additional building," notes Fiber High partner, Liza Loop. She and Gjerdrum point out that fiber connected distributed computing facilities using existing HVAC equipment to handle a smaller number of machines is truly a "green" alternative to the huge collocation sites that are being built in Silicon Valley. They believe that small, collaborative workplaces will foster the kind of innovation the Bay Area is famous for.

For more information please visit: www.fiberhigh.com or contact Managing Partner, David Gjerdrum, by phone at 650 714 7667 or email at david@fiberhigh.com

Fiber High, LLC
Partners: David Gjerdrum, Brian Skiba, Liza Loop
989 Commercial St.
Palo Alto, CA 94303
Tel: 650 964 5623
email: Fiberhigh@gmail.com

Last updated: 10.17.2008 05:57 PM