Offer broadband to tenants, or not?

It so happens that both of my current tenants will be leaving after several years, within the next few months. They’ve had their own cable and internet installs through time warner for the time they’ve been here and will be dropping their connections, obviously, when they leave. I’ve planned on upgrading my speed anyway, but want some opinions on sweetening the pot for incoming tenants. I’m good on the technology side of things – I do this for a living. networking, firewalling, and if needed, bandwidth limiting (for hogs who slow the whole house down) won’t be an issue. What i’m interested in is the human side of things. On the one hand, hey it’d be a nice thing to do. Everyone loves free internet, especially fast free internet. I’d throw some pretty failproof cisco wifi hardware on each floor for them to connect through and call it a day. It’s a 3 unit building in which i reside (i live in the garden duplex) so the top tier 50mb/s package would be adequate. The peak slowdown, as is the nature of cable broadband, would affect us no matter what, so that’s a wash. On the other hand, i stand to become their personal helpdesk when things don’t work (even if it’s just their own machine) and it also opens me up to liability for their surfing habits -specifically the things that would get me dropped from an isp like careless movie downloads, child pornography, etc. So – do any of you provide broadband access for your tenants, and what have your experiences been?

Goatcrapp

in About Brooklyn 11 years and 9 months ago

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bedstuytownhouse | 11 years and 9 months ago

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Bedstuyreno – that’s a great way to handle it and we may reconsider. Thanks.

Goatcrapp | 11 years and 9 months ago

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Townie – It would definitely be just a perk, and subject to discontinuation (especially if, for instance, i start getting MPAA letters) Bedstuytownhouse – Regarding the actual connection, the equipment would be sheltered (I run my own servers and have a rack with power backup) so a tripped switch wouldn’t be a problem – BUT, things still go down every now and then – nature of the hardware. and i guess i could draw a line in the sand about support – ie: i’ll get to it when i can, but am *not* emergency support… and my support extends as far as testing my laptop on the same wireless – if it works, problem isn’t mine. Since i co-exist with the people I rent to, i also strive to make as much of a home as possible – i’ve found tenants take care of things better when its their *home* not just a rental. Bedstuyreno – that’s kind of my thinking.. Still on the fence, but I have some time to decide.

bedstuyreno | 11 years and 9 months ago

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I offer my tenants free wifi. My was thinking was “why should we all give the cable company $50 per month”. I told both tenants that I’m not responsible if it goes down (being this is just an added perk) and if they need a higher speed or control then they should order their own. Both tenants really appreciate the feature and we haven’t had any issues.

bedstuytownhouse | 11 years and 9 months ago

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We own a building with two rentals and offer both free wifi. We have never had any unsavorary issues like you mentioned towards the end of your post but as the apartments turn over, we will no longer be offering that as an amenity to our tenants because, like you mentioned, whenever the internet does go down, we get calls, texts, emails and frankly, it isn’t worth the hassle to have to rush home to flip the switch on the power strip that our cleaning lady accidently switched or whatever the case is. We already offer beautifully renovated apartments, under market value and we don’t raise the rent because we want our tenants to feel lucky to live in our building…they do and so will future tenants…with or without free wifi.

Townie | 11 years and 9 months ago

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Nudge nudge, wink wink..If a person was to do this, say for the last 5 years or so, cable tv, the HBO, the hi speed internet, and has had no problems, say saving the tenant $200 a month, nudge, nudge, with out any problems, wink wink, I would bet the landlord might want to make this conditional, meaning free hypothetical service may be discontinued at any time, wink, wink, including NFL RedZone, nudge, nudge.

catbk | 11 years and 9 months ago

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A friend – this was years ago when wifi was less common – got in some trouble with Verizon for providing wifi to his neighbors. I think he might have had them chipping in on his bill though. That said, I’ve thought about doing this too. I wonder if there could be a clause added into a tenant’s lease about accepting the free wifi and releasing you from any liability for trouble they get themselves into?

johnife | 11 years and 9 months ago

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I was actually thinking of doing this for my sole tenant upon lease renewal but your comment regarding potential dodgy activity leading to ISP loss has got me thinking again.