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Broadweave defends efforts to buy iProvo

None of the allegations would surprise me - particularly the one about being the exclusive provider. I live in Traverse Mountain in Lehi where we are obligated to purchase Broadweave services according to the master association agreement. Their data service is adequate, but we'll never find out if they'd survive here amidst competition.

"...the city sent out requests April 18, 2007..."

I would think one obvious question to ask is, "How many requests and sent to whom?"

I know nothing specifically negative about Broadweave, but there is something very fishy about this and the way it came about.

My recommendation would be to listen closely to Pete Ashdown, someone with whom I have dealt for almost 15 years and have always found to be both very honest and very competent. Especially in matters concerning the Internet and its use in society. It appears his is a very cautious stance and mine is the same.

Be careful with this one.

Broadweave provides telecommunications services up in Traverse Mountain and pricing is not competitive and service has been spotty for multiple years. Website Interface is old and rough around the edges. The customer service in responding to complaints is a slight positive. My main concern are the multiple excuses as to why they haven't been able to provide cable TV. The network is supposedly set up, but 5 years later and still no service provided yet but many excuses. Now they want to tackle iProvo? Smells fishy. This is a very small outfit making offers at multiple sites that include Houston. Anyone else sense a artificial inflation and sell-out? Provo citizens need to look at Traverse as a model before they allow these guys to take over.

I think that Provo city should not be selling their network. What happened to providing the American Citizens with high speed internet service. Broadweave limits the bandwidth so much that they are any better than any of the other options for internet/tv/phone service out there. Why have fiber to the house if you will only get 5 mbps download and 1 mbps upload?

Provo should stick to it for longer and consider the future of their citizens. 5 years is hardly long enough to see the full benefit of something. iProvo provided good competition at very reasonable prices. Broadweave will not be able to provide the same service at the same price since they will own the entire network.

I'm a faithful customer of Broadweave's. I came from a neighborhood where all I could get was Qwest DSL service and the support was terrible.

Broadweave has been a breath of fresh air. Their service is very reliable and more importantly, when I have questions, I actually speak with the person who fixes the issue. Broadweave is always prompt.

As a faithful Broadweave customer, I would never leave to a big impersonal provider. Been there, done that.

This is frustrating, I just signed up for iProvo because of its huge bandwidth, great speed, and reasonable price. What will happen now?

First TM Poster. It is my understanding that the Master Association is responsible for the satellite needed for Broadweave to provide TV. TM mentions it at almost every HOA meeting. So talk to them instead of bashing Broadweave.
Also other providers had a chance to get their services here in the beginning, and refused to extend their services into TM.
Second TM poster. I came from a Comcast connection to TM and found the speeds MUCH faster in comparison. The numbers may be close, but the difference is I actually get what I pay for with Broadweave and never did with Comcast. As far as price goes they are competitive with other big providers such as Comcast and QWest, and with betters services. Let's not expect them to pull an MStar or Veracity, or maybe the Provo residents will be doing this all over soon.
Yes their website is definitely rough around the edges, but their service has always been very personable and good. I think this Provo stuff will be good for iProvo customers and TM homeowners.

I don't know anything about Broadweave, and I hope things turn out well for citizens of Provo. I am happy, though, to see Provo City get out of their experiment with socialism.

kudos to Broadweave! what a great thing they are doing for the iprovo network! waiting it out for any longer would be ludacris! how much farther do you want the city to dig their hole? maybe keeping an open mind to change would be the best idea for everyone..

I have lived in Traverse Mountain for almost 3 years. I am yet to have a major problem with my services. I have been so pleased with my servcies and the quick response from the customer support technicians! I initially was skeptical about something new but i wouldnt go back to Qwest or Comcast even if i had the choice!

...the problem with no video in Traverse Mountain is not Broadweave, from my understanding its the developer, they are responsible for that purchase due to their joint agreement. I am hoping that Broadweave will now provide television services into the community now!! Wake up Traverse let broadweave do what they are obviously good at!

Internet has been solid, higher speeds would be nice, but the providers on iProvo proved you cant have your cake and eat it too!

Phone has always been fantastic. I have neighbors who have experienced problems, but I am not sure what type of problem, something about faxing.

...the CEO said it best in his comments, everyone is losing on the iProvo model, the city, the providers, the citizens. Its a race to the bottom and we can all be thankful that M-Zero, er I mean Net-Star...whoops, M-Star was willing to sacrifice their employees livelihoods to be the first to the bottom!! Good job! Job well done!! X-mission is in financial ruin on Utopia as well, they must have a good parachute for their fall, its been slllloooooooooow.

blogs, posts, comments.....isn't there like 100,000 people who live in Happy Valley "Y" country? Wouldn't there be more people posting or is it that just we techno-utahns live our lives posting the negative or critical and the other 99,988 people out there don't post because no word is good word....help a gal out here? Does the squeaky wheel get grease or does the squeaky wheel get removed and put in the pile of other squeaky wheels in the stockyard out back.

Broadweave has no clue. They have a whopping 27 video customers who have no choice since their developer forced the service on them. The worst part is they think they know something and so they will rebuild the iProvo network in their own image. The Provo geniuses with help from Broadweave will now destroy the only good part of the iProvo project: the physical network. This is just sliding deeper into the mire.

The statement that Broadweave was selected as a result of due diligence by Provo management is laughable. It turns out they barely exist legally with no business licenses in Lehi or Washington cities. They also have no registration with Utah state for their LLC. Clearly they are used to skirting around legalities as if they were some privileged entity. Well Provo has just confirmed that. I wonder if they will survive the scrutiny that will accompany this shady deal. For example; have they been paying their taxes and fees on their telephone services when they don't even have proper licensing? Does buying out the competitors result in an anti-trust issue? Will they be recieving long-term special treatment from Provo city as compared to other communications vendors that would include free services from the city utility?

The City of Provo should be ashamed! Consider for a moment the fact that the RFP which was sent out last year never was for the acquisition of the entire network. In fact, while Mayor Billings has been publicly saying "it's too early to sell" he was secretly negotiating a back-door deal (his M.O.) to try and save his political career. He then announces 2 weeks after the above quote that the city has received a buyout offer from Broadweave. Not only that, but there's NO MONEY DOWN, THEY GET $2.6 Million IN EQUITY, and THEY ARE NOT ON THE HOOK IF THEY CAN'T PULL IT OFF!!! Think about it! Does this sound rational to you? What kind of deal is the mayor getting out of this? Why is the City Council only asking the "soft" ball questions of Christensen. This guy is clearly a snake oil salesman who couldn't even directly answer a City Councilwoman's question of how many video subscribers they had. He said, "sub 100." Wow! would it have been too much to say "only 27." This deal stinks to high heaven and someone should be investigating the mayor and his legal counsel.