In-Building Service Provider

From a field that was riddled with financial failures this year, IntelliSpace emerged victorious, due in no small part to its survival skills. Even last years winner, Allied Riser Communications, is moving out of the business, and one-time industry leaders such as OnSite Access have already given up the ghost and sold their assets at a deep discount.

"IntelliSpace proves small in-building providers can survive and compete on organic growth," Smetannikov comments.

Founded in December 1995, the company now has operations in 15 markets, providing broadband data services in multitenant buildings. IntelliSpace has pioneered in many areas, including use of Ethernet IP networking technology; deployment of an in-building backbone network connecting commercial tenants directly to the Internet; and the provision of multiple backup connections for fail-safe reliability.

The company has offered an innovative bandwidth-on-demand product known as e-Valve, which can scale from kilobits per second up to 10Gbps, and can be customer-controlled via a Web site or a telephone call.

CEO Jeff Allens IntelliSpace also developed a full portfolio of value-added services — such as e-mail, firewalls, virtual private networks (VPNs), Web hosting and colocation — to help customers and improve revenue.

"In difficult economic times, it is truly innovative to develop a sound strategy and then stick to it, which IntelliSpace has done," Wilson says. "They have remained focused, and managed not to overextend their reach."

Others receiving votes: None

Previous winners: Allied Riser Communications (2000)