Billings said again that he is not completely satisfied with the level of customer service provided by the two companies on the iProvo network, MStar and Veracity/Nuvont.

"While we have some issues," he said, "we have people who sign up and find incredible access. We have one provider who sells only in the summer. We're already seeing our installations go back up even beyond what we've projected" — which is 60 installations per week.

Councilman Steve Turley voted against the plan to use surplus sales tax to pay the debt next year.

"I want to stay the course with the loans," he said. "As this plays out, if we need to change later, we can address it later. I believe it's premature to change course on this funding mechanism."

He also said the majority of residents don't subscribe to iProvo and shouldn't have to pay for the iProvo debt in lieu of other services.

Council members Cindy Richards, Cindy Clark and Barbara Sandstrom said they wanted to help iProvo pay as it goes this year, instead of adding new debt.

Councilwoman Cynthia Dayton was absent.

Billings said residents should look at how well iProvo has done over the past two years. The network had fewer than 2,000 subscribers in the summer of 2005.

It broke 5,000 subscribers in February 2006 and reached 9,000 subscribers in early 2007.

However, the break-even point has risen from the original projection of 10,000 subscribers to between 16,000 and 18,000.

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E-mail: twalch@desnews.com