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iProvo network takes another blow

So they were expecting these companies would just roll over and say "here take all of our customers and income"?

This whole thing stinks.

It was working just fine before.

Billings is a spinmaster who is desparately trying to hold this deal together through his Pollyanna message. He sold this deal on the basis that Sorenson would be there and that Veracity, Nuvont and MStar would join efforts. I doubt it would have passed had Broadweave not been bolstered by all the companies involved. This is another fiasco. Broadweave has had four system-wide outages in four months. That was unheard of on the iProvo system. But apparently ALL IS WELL...Can we sell off Billings and Garlick without an RFP? Heck...let's give them away.

Come on Stewart, what a ridiculous plan B. Broadweave is not capable of running anything. They lose the Veracity deal, Lose Sorenson for capital, lose Nuvont, cause a number of outages, are denied a business license for their Sienna Hills project from Washington City where they have been illegally serving customers, Have no business permit for the Lehi city project, have problems making payroll, were unsucessful in hiring iProvo engineers, have launched no marketing program, and on and on. Yea it's all going great. You need to stop listening to Mayor Biilings and Kevin Garlick (supposed Energy director, iProvo director and key strategist). It's time for the council to start thinking for themselves. Broadweave will be a lose-lose proposition and it's best for the city to cut thier losses now! There are better alternatives.

Why was Broadweave selected if they were not capable of closing the deal due to no financing. It is unthinkably unfair to just hand them the network when they don't qualify for the deal. The only thing worse is to allow them to continue operating it if they miss the second closing.

Other options like Utopia operation demand an equal consideration. How do you guys in Provo sleep at night. This is so wrong, people are asking if there is some kind of personal benefit for the decision makers. Which is worse incompetence or corruption?

From day one this entire iProvo "proposal" by Billings and Garlick has turned out to be sham. I have never seen anything so poorly managed in my life. Where did these guys learn to lead? No wonder 98% of all Provo Employees have a lot of serious disdain for Billings as do 99% of the Energy Department employees have for Garlick. Why? Because they both think they know everything and treat everyone else as such. And yet, is it the employees that have wasted 60 million dollars and counting on an idea? No, it is the two at the top. Time for a change!

Provo should never have put itself in this position. If Broadweave wasn't able to close completely July 1, the mayor's office should not have allowed Broadweave to take over operations. This idea of a "modified close" was never open for public comment, never voted on by city council, and should never have happened.

It's time for a real plan B, that does not include continuing to allow this kind of "modified" agreement.

1. Provo takes back control of the network.
2. Provo offers to employ any Broadweave tech currently operating iProvo on the same terms they currently get from Broadweave.
3. Provo offers to employ any former iProvo tech that left recently at 5 or 10% better terms that they currently get.
(continued)

When this "project" first started, the Taxpayer's Association, BYU Professors, wireless internat companies, business leagues and private citizens were telling everyone that would listen that this was a bad idea. The council was shown that other systems failed, they were reminded that the price of bandwidth would drop and that competition would be harsh. When asked why IProvo could profit where private companies determined they could not - there was never an answer - just an accusations that opponents were monopolists.

The city and it's residents (70% support) ignored all outside advice. In fact, mayor billings threw down some religous rhetoric quoting an LDS pioneer song in an attempt to discredit the critics of IProvo as outsiders. Despite the case against the risk, ONLY 1 council member stood against IProvo - the vote was 6-1 with Stan Lockhart standing alone.

Now you have a network of questionable value, being sold in a suspicious deal to a questionable company under desperate circumstances....by a mayor with a history of dishonesty. Hmmm....who saw this one coming?

Updates for IProvo should be moved the police blog.

The technical internet service has bee excellent--the download and upload speeds (actual tests connecting to various servers) far exceeds the actual data rates of those of Qwest, Comcast, Yahoo, MSN, etc. Oh what a pleasure it has been to see large files downloaded and uploaded so quickly--iProvo is good.

My only problem has been with customer service provided by Nuvont. I have sent a numerous email on issues both through Nuvont's web page and email address--none have been acknowledged or repsonded to.

I have used the phone for urgent/immediate service issues (almost 100% of issues has been landline phone). The acknowldege the the conversation, but no follow-up phone call.

Hopefully Steve Turley can use his talent to try to solve the problem and not kill the system.

I like iProvo internet and VoiP. It is my hope that Mayor Billings, Steve Turley, and iProvo providers can resolve their issue and continue to provide iProvo customers with excellent high speed data service. There are presently no other high speed providers that can provide the date rates I experience at the very reasonable price I pay. My connection is better than three T-1 dedicated high speed lines--that's fast and cost effeictive.

We need Steve Turley to call for an independent state audit of the back room shady deals which is the iProvo we all know. The Utah State Attorney General should be involved in this misuse of public funds.

Do you think that if this audit happened...somebody would end up in jail? I do!