By Carol Coultas,Business Writer
Oxford Networks, developer team up to lure young home buyers.

LEWISTON – Developer Travis Soule intends to convert the former Stevens Mills apartments into condominiums for first-time home buyers – a demographic that expects to live in a wireless world.

No worry. He has already partnered with Oxford Networks to offer prospective buyers high-speed Internet, digital cable TV and phone service.

“I expect these will be mostly younger couples,” said Soule, who attended a celebration at Oxford Networks’ Lisbon Street headquarters Thursday morning. The ceremony recognized the completion of the communications company’s second phase of networking.

“These are people who don’t remember a day without connectivity,” he said.

Working with a local company also means he can negotiate for rates that will work with his intended market. He hopes to build 20 condominium units by rehabbing the former Section 8 housing in Auburn and to sell them in the range of $120,000. At the opposite end of the real estate spectrum, Soule is progressing on his $500,000 condominiums at Island Point in Lewiston overlooking the Androscoggin; Oxford Networks will provide the infrastructure for security and other systems for that project.

“We’re with them every step of the way,” said Soule.

Soule’s Landmark Properties is one of the 600 businesses in Lewiston-Auburn that has the option of tying in with Oxford Networks in Lewiston-Auburn. With the completion of the second phase of its fiber-optic network, the company can also offer its broadband services to 6,000 residents.

Rick Anstey, chief executive of the Buckfield-born Oxford Networks, said the company is discussing where and when to begin the third phase of service. The company originally announced a five-phase plan to extend its fiber-optic system, but Anstey said it has been more of a continuous process rather than distinct phases. He hopes the project will be finished in 2008.

“Things look good,” said Anstey, in a reference to the connection project and the company’s financial health.

In its last quarterly report, Oxford Network reported pre-tax earnings of $4.3 million – a 34 percent increase since the first of the year. The company has invested about $10 million in extending its fiber-optic network to date.

“Our strategy is working for us,” he said.

Its commitment to lease the first of the renovated buildings on Lisbon Street in Lewiston’s Southern Gateway earned the company accolades from several city officials. The company has also paid $250,000 in combined personal property and real estate taxes to the two cities and employs about 120 people.

“I think Oxford Networks’ investment is paying off for the cities,” Anstey said.

Ed Stebbins, a partner in Gritty McDuff’s brew pubs, said his company recently switched from another network provider to Oxford Networks. Pubs in Auburn, Freeport and Portland have digital cable TV, but more important – at least from an operational view – all the cash registers are tied into an Internet system.

The network allows Stebbins to see how each pub is doing, what’s selling and how busy they are, from any location.

“The cash registers are a very complex system of software; they’re actually very powerful computers,” said Stebbins. “They’re vital to our business.”

“And as a local business, we prefer to do business with other local companies,” he said of the switch to Oxford Networks. “We take very seriously our commitment to the communities we serve.”