Several top MSOs and venture-capital companies have invested $45 million
to help fund @Security Broadband Corp., which plans to launch a home-security
service reliant on cable-modem networks.
Adelphia Communications Corp., Charter Communications Inc., Comcast Corp.,
Cox Communications Inc. and Canadian MSOs Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw
Communications Inc. each put up $3.6 million in the company's second round of
financing, after investing $1 million apiece last year, a company source
confirmed.
The company plans to announce the latest infusion Monday.
Other investors in @Security -- founded by former Prime Cable executives
William Glasgow and Jerry Lindauer -- include Catalyst Investors L.P.,
Advance/Newhouse, Coditel, the Bank of Montreal's Halyard Capital Fund, the
Greenspun family, The CIT Group Inc. and Prime New Ventures.
Cox completed a six-month trial involving 85 homes in its Las Vegas system in
March. The MSO plans to conduct a second trial on another system by the end of
the year and to deploy the product commercially by the middle of next year, Cox
director of business development Jeff Brown said.
The vendor is pitching a home-security and monitoring system tied to the
Internet via cable modem. A customer could install up to four video cameras in
their home -- typically one at the front door, a second camera at the back door,
one in the dwelling's busiest hallway and another in the family room, according
to Glasgow.
Subscribers could also install microphones to pick up audio and monitor their
homes from work or any other location with Internet access.
The company has set up a Web site that lets
subscribers view their homes and access other personal safety information,
Glasgow said. It hasn't settled on a brand for the service, although Safe
Village is a leading candidate, he added.
The company has talked with its cable partners about developing a national
brand or allowing operators to brand the service locally with the names of their
cable companies, he said.
One drawback is that the service is only available to cable-modem
subscribers, Glasgow said. But Brown said Cox could eventually offer a package
to non-Excite@Home Corp. subscribers that would include a modem to be used
solely for the security system.
The company expects to charge $39.99 per month for the
service, but @Security is still negotiating how to share that revenue with cable
operators, Glasgow said.
