Texas, a driving high-tech force, is the second state in the game plan for the two-year-old Carlsbad company. More pacts are in talking stages with existing clients as well as some new conversions for a high number of industrial parks, all west of the Mississippi. The Denver area will follow Texas, but it might take awhile since there is another 10 million sf waiting to be done just in Dallas and Houston. San Antonio and Austin projects will roll out in the third quarter.

In Houston, PhatPipe has just wrapped up its first project at the 1.6-million-sf Post Oak, a ProLogis holding. In Dallas, ProLogis is up and running with DSL-driven campus networks at the estimated two million-sf Greater Southwest Industrial Park and 3.5 million-sf Dallas Corporate Center. AMB Property Corp. has its 300,000-sf Royal Lakes on line. Without any fanfare, PhatPipe quietly had launched its Texas rollout in February. Officials Friday had decided it was time to talk about its Texas strategy in an exclusive GlobeSt.com interview.

PhatPipe's client base currently consists of AMB Property Corp., CenterPoint Properties Trust, EastGroup Properties, First Industrial Realty Trust, Glenborough Realty Trust Inc. and ProLogis. In all, 600 million sf is seeding PhatPipe's niche market for connecting existing inventory.

Industrial park needs are much the same as those of office users, Don Ankeny, PhatPipe's president and CEO, tells GlobeSt.com. And while there's free access, there are few serving the industry because it inherently carries lower revenue-generating possibilities due to fewer tenants. Yet realistically, it's the "fourth utility," he says.

Ankeny says the key for linking the REITs' industrial inventory is to go where there's a critical mass of buildings so it's cost-efficient. Another key element is that clients, not PhatPipe, pay equipment costs as an added tenant service. Bringing real-time, high-tech capability is virtually a must in today's IT-driven workplace, where tracking "every item down to the SKU" and networking are integral to everyday operations.

Of the nation's 200,000 industrial buildings, Ankeny estimates on 3% to 5% are new and thus being constructed with high-tech amenities. "The big piece of the pie are existing buildings," he explains. Like many residential properties, conventional DSL is not yet available so PhatPipe co-mingles technology to provide high-speed connections in a campus-style network--a highly sought and valuable must-have for conducting business in the New World workplace.