Reader comments
Mayor calls iProvo sale a good deal

What? No mention about Billings goint to West Jordan with Broadweave Networks?

Ashdown must be dumbing down the term monopoly because this "monopoly" will be competing against Qwest, Comcast, and wireless. Counting the "monopoly" itself, that's four companies.

No other technology can compare to fiber. There is now only one company who can provide that service in Provo.

I'm a current Mstar customer that takes advantage of the iProvo network. We pay $40/mo for 15 mbs download and upload speeds (the upload is rarely that fast, though, as i regularly check speedtest.net). Our telephone services are completely Skype-based (we bought Skype handsets, so it's like have a normal phone). What happens to my service? I thought this was an infrastructure that different providers could take advantage of. Now, it's going to be handed over to someone that, according to their website, offers 10 Mbps downloads and 1 Mbps uploads. I regularly get faster than that on my 'basic' service already (if I'd've lived in Orem, Mstar would've given me 50 Mbps for the same price, but iProvo restricts what speeds are allowed). So what do I do now? I'm going to lose my provider and, on the same network, pay more for less. Thanks, Provo.

Provo got "worked" on that one. Nice job building it to do a back door deal on the sale for the same amount. Just announce it's for sale to the highest bidder and see what happens. Where's Bernie Ebbers when you need him?

"There is now only one company who can provide that service in Provo."

Well, there was only one company before! iProvo was the only fiber optic network in the city, and it still is. In fact, the reason the city built iProvo is that private companies wouldn't do it. If this is a monopoly, then Qwest and Comcast deserve it. They should have hopped on board before, rather than fight agaisnt superior technology.

If this is the first time Xmission has heard of the sale, this was not a public sale. Why not? Are they trying to "cut and run" quickly and quietly, to avoid further criticism of public money used badly. And here we go again. My guess is Provo got far less than it might. Why didn't they open it up for public bidding, getting the best price possible? They made a big mistake in putting in the system at tax payer expense, and will not admit it. And now they have sold it without competing bids to get the best price, a terrible mistake to hide their first mistake.

The ONLY reason I have stayed with iProvo this long is the upload speed. If Broadweave is going to change that model, I'm going right back to Comcast. They had more reliable phones anyway.

I will be watching for the "announcements" in the coming weeks regarding the offering that Broadweave will be presenting to the good citizens of Provo.

The reason iProvo was built was to offer the citizens of Provo a choice. Now that Provo city Utilities has mismanaged this pig to the point that they have to sell it to a private company that will NOT offer a choice, I may have to rethink the whole fiber to the home issue. Why didn't this get sold to UTOPIA? They just refinianced...and they could have afforded it? At least by selling it to UTOPIA we would still have choices.

THIS IS A LOSE LOSE DEAL AND BILLINGS SHOULD BE RECALLED OVER THIS DEBACLE! (actually the only one that appears to win is Billings because the council will finally be off his back)

What was not announced is that this sale is financed by the owner (Provo City). Provo gets to keep the bond as is. So far, every entity that has entered a contractual relationship with Provo has at one point in time failed to meet it's financial obligations to the city. Homenet, Atlantic Engineering Group, Mstar, Veracity have all had their "low moments." Nuvont has never has a contract with Provo City and therefore has never had to meet it's financial obligations, because it never had any.

All this just means that when Broadweave fails to make payments to Provo, Provo is back in the telecom business.

Does Broadweave know that they are buying bad fiber? There are miles of fiber on the network that just quit working when it gets cold. Provo tried a band-aid approach for the last couple of years to mitigate this. Poorly manufactured fiber was poorly installed. Bad combination. Bonus phrase of the day: fiber attenuation

as a network engineer the "desperation attempts" by mstar and any other providers to give a googalbit connection to the web is unrealistic. Mstar did all other service providers in the United States a major injustice by trying to provide speeds that were so astronomically pointless, they thought people would jump in their boat, obviously that didnt happen. There is a reason why qwest and comcast are still actually "OPERATING", its because they are realistic....as a network engineer who does this for a living and knows what the equipment is capable of, I also know there are very basic business fundamentals that citizens need to recognize and understand in this type of industry. 50 Megs to the web is like giving you a Dodge Viber to climb the Timpanogos Mtn trail.

The speed tests might show very high speeds, both up and down. But, the reality is that you only get 300k-1mb per second. It's very rare that you really get to use 10mbp/s in real life.

Pete Ashdown is showing his liberal nature by all the whining he's doing. If he didn't understand the rfp, too bad for him. I doubt that xmission would have succeeded on iprovo, anyway. I certainly wouldn't have subscribed to it. I'm very glad that he's not the new owner of iprovo.

Good job, Mayor Billings. You lied to the residents of Provo for months while the city continued to do nothing to fix the network. This gross mismanagement of city assets to reach a pre-determined conclusion is shameful at best. Not only will you abandon iProvo's guiding principle of creating a new competitive platform for multiple telecommunications companies, you're also going to sell the network for a lot less than was paid for it. Good job, mayor, for doing what was politically expedient instead of what was right for the city. I can only hope that you and the council will pay for it in 2009.

Ashdown is a sore loser. His conflict of interest makes him a poor critic.

drjonessays,

Why would you doubt Broadweave's viability. They are a huge company with a strong history in telecommunications. Oh wait, no they're not.

They're actually smaller than any of the previous iProvo providers. They are not yet profitable. They only survive on venture capital money. They only have a handful of customers in north Lehi, and a tiny group in St. George. Sounds like Homenet, Mstar, Nuvont, (but worse).

Keep in mind, they aren't paying 40M, they're just agreeing to start paying the bond payments towards the 40M. When they fail, Provo will have to bail them out and take over the rest of the debt. This seems like a short sighted attempt by Billings to get re-elected.

Let's see. I get to take over this business that borrowed money at government rates, is finished with the buildout, and has over 10,000 customers. I don't have to refinance in my own name. I just have to cover a $2M annual shortfall until I can figure out how to make it profitable?

How long until those retailer contracts are up? 1 year? And then I can refuse to renew and get the customers for myself? Hmmm - total pricing power.

And if I screw up I didn't put any real skin in the game - the city has to pick up the pieces and keep paying the debt.

Nobody else knows about this deal, right? Any chance we can sign the papers before the press release?

Another back door deal, negotiated in secret. Is this the only way Provo can do business? What about public input? What about an open and fair bidding process. This is just more stench. Go away Billings and Garlick. What about the several million lost in subsidized operational budgets for iProvo. They lost over $10 million dollars for the city in addition to the $40 million still at risk. Now they cannot even pay for a cost of living raise for their employees.
Talk about bad management! They should hide there head in shame.

They did the right thing selling the business. We elect people to govern the city, not to be on the Board of Directors of a technology company. It's a whole different skill and interest set.

Government should not be running businesses on the side.

I'm sorry, but with this deal Provo isn't getting out of the technology business. Provo is handing over the upside of a technology business to private individuals, while keeping the downside for itself. In return it doesn't even get a vote on the board of directors.

This is like selling my house to someone after I worked to fix it up by letting them pay on my mortgage. They can sell the house and keep the profit, or trash the house and walk away. Either way I'm screwed.

Why is Provo doing this? iProvo has been a political nightmare. The politicians just want the media to stop beating them up. Anything to stop the pain.

I'm really curious to know how big Broadweave is. From what I can tell it's not exactly a big player. Does this purchase double their customer base or more? This sounds a lot like HomeNet to me.

Remember how great HomeNet was? They were an "established player", but iProvo was such a big deal for them that they moved headquarters to run it. Then they crashed and burned.

Of course, Broadweave has big money behind it. It's totally different. Never mind that the big money isn't putting up any cash for this deal. Big money knows how to jump at a no-risk opportunity.

If XMission wants to get in on the same terms, I'd give it to XMission. At least they're a truly established company. They actually make money.