Reader comments
UTOPIA forms advisory committee to provied feedback

Let's ride this UTOPIA boat all the way down to the bottom!

Jesse is a Utopia "cheerleader" who has "drunk the kool-aid". Utopia could not have selected a better fox to help watch the hen house.

I'll bet you never hear any criticism of Utopia from Jesse.

Other than Utopia, I doubt anyone would consider him an unbiased authority on municipal fiber networks.

Utopia is a 7000 subscriber network but it's not being run like a small local phone or cable company. It's being staffed and run like a Fortune 500 company. Over staffed and over paid executives compared to a small independent phone company or cable company.

They burned over $100 million dollars with little to show for it. Jesse is on the sidelines yelling "Spend More!, Spend it Faster!"

Jesse for President. Smart move Utopia.

So, Mr. Anonymous from 9:19 a.m., would your assessment of Utopia (overstaffed and overpaid executives, acting like a Fortune 500 instead of a small local phone or cable company, etc.) hold true for Broadweave, soon-to-be purchaser of iProvo at $41 million and yet with a current customer base that is a fraction of Utopia's?

Sounds to me like you've been taken to the woodshed one too many times over at FreeUtopia.org by the some of the bloggers who actually know what they are talking about.

No one ever said the advisory panel would be there to be Kenneth Starr to Utopia's Bill Clinton. As I've followed his blog, I've heard plenty of constructive (key word - CONSTRUCTIVE) criticism from Jesse. I think the advisory panel can do a lot of good advising Utopia from the outside on how to be more successful, without taking an adversarial stance on the project. From my perspective Jesse's the perfect person to head this up. Give it some time and then criticize if it turns out to be just mindless cheerleading. But even that would be refreshing for a change as opposed to the mindless bashing I've heard over the last few months.

"Other than Utopia, I doubt anyone would consider him an unbiased authority on municipal fiber networks."

Which is why the Daily Herald asked me to write op-ed pieces on iProvo on two separate occasions and I made most of the same recommendations that the iProvo consultants did, only 5 months earlier and for free. And I've been interviewed by reporters from the Tribune, Deseret News, Daily Herald and SL Weekly about UTOPIA. Am I unbiased? Hardly, and I make no pretension of such. Am I authoritative? I'll let the media record speak for itself.

"I'll bet you never hear any criticism of Utopia from Jesse."

Sure, because I've never said that the marketing sucks, that they need to get more providers on the network or that their website lacks important information. Oh wait...

"It's being staffed and run like a Fortune 500 company."

Citation?

"They burned over $100 million dollars with little to show for it."

Except for a state-of-the-art fiber backbone and over 42,000 passed addresses. Their costs are in-line with what Verizon has been spending on FIOS. I've also heard dozens of stories about companies who relocated to UTOPIA service areas because of all the money they same on telecommunications services. Orem is saving $600K per year in telecommunications costs, a significant chunk of their pledge commitment. If that's "nothing", I'm eager to hear what "something" is.

"Jesse is on the sidelines yelling 'Spend More!, Spend it Faster!'"

I've been saying that the cities should consider paying cash for their portion of the network instead of using a bond to try for a free lunch. While it seemed like a good idea at the time to avoid a lot of upfront costs, I think it would be smarter to bite the bullet and pay it off. Not quite the same as spending willy-nilly.

Anyone who's followed what I write knows that I don't hold back criticisms. I regularly slammed how iProvo was being run despite supporting the network. I've often opined that UTOPIA's website is near-useless and seldom sees updates (which is going to change within a few months, tops). I've given American Fork some harsh treatment for the terrible way in which they've managed their network.

While I am an unabashed supporter of UTOPIA and municipal networks, that doesn't mean they get a free pass from me if they're doing something wrong. That would only encourage them to fail, something bashers like the UTA want to happen consequences to the taxpayers be damned.

SAD STORY.

I'd advise Utopia to get ready for failure.