Reader comments
UTOPIA critics were right

I don't have Utopia, but I have high speed internet. I wonder why cities thought it was worth the risk they took to get Utopia, when it would have only been a short time until high speed internet would be available to everyone at a reasonable price.

Even in the outlying areas its available, its called hughesnet and you just put a dish on your roof to get it.

More bailouts for a society based on bailouts?

I have high-speed Internet 12MB fiber-optic and so thankful I do not live in a UTOPIA city. According to their website, the member cities are: Tremonton, Brigham City, Perry, Layton, Centerville, West Valley City, Murray, Riverton, Midvale, Cedar Hills, Lindon, Orem, Payson and Cedar City. I hope these residents are ready for some of their city tax revenues to pay for Utopia.

Most of the cities are only planned for future phases. It'll be too bad those cities will pay money for something they don't have yet.

There has been nothing lucky about the Provo City experience. The city has already squandered more than $20 million out of pocket from the Energy reserve fund and other reserves. The city still owes the $40 million bond. Broadweave gets to experiment with Provo's network while the bond payments are being paid by very unlucky investors.
Lucky? I don't think so!!
Now Utopia will start dipping into city general budget funds across the state. Great I pay taxes so Utopia can use them to unfairly compete with the private sector. Make it stop!
Please remember that this all started in Provo at the Energy department. Without this insanity there would be no Utopia.

Between Concast and Qwest, do we really think this is competition? We have slower solutions available in wireless but again, that's competition?

Perhaps we should look at encouraging other companies (such as Verizion) to bring FIOS to the Rocky Mountains. They would be the closest in services and speed to provide real competition around here.

Honestly, Qwest cannot hope to compete with Concast. They simply can't provide similar speeds or services.

NOW is the time to choose NEW leaders both locally and in the state legislature. UTOPIA is a state wide thing sponsored first by the elected legislators and secondly by elected city council members!

I hope your questions were more than rhetorical.

Local governments have an interest in funding next-generation telecommunications because the local incumbents have failed to do so even when offered payments by a city to offset the cost. We've slid to 20th in broadband adoption and around 19th in speed among industrialized countries despite incumbents being provided with over $300B in benefits under the Telco Act of '96 to provide a full-fiber network capable of 45Mbps bi-directional Internet access, video teleconferencing, and 500+ HD channels with competing service providers. Cities have identified a need for the infrastructure and have tried to get incumbents to provider it, yet they failed to do so. What option are they left with?

You raise issues about fair competition but fail to mention that Qwest has attempted to legislate and litigate competing solutions out of business. Comcast regularly sells services below-cost in UTOPIA areas to try and drive them out of business, a tactic once employed by Standard Oil. If we want to talk about playing dirty, let's. UTOPIA has much cleaner hands in this matter. (continued)

Misinformed: Get your facts right.
I don't believe UTOPIA is a child of iProvo in any form or manner. Before iProvo ever considered building a fiber network (their original plan called for a HFC network similar to what Comcast offered and Spanish Fork built (successfully)) there was a consulting group, Pinnacle Services (?) that later split and morphed into Dynamic Cities, planning to help cities here in Utah build a FTTH network. They approached Provo pitching fiber when Provo believed fiber was too costly.

Don't Elect Incumbents:
The legislature was never supportive of either iProvo or UTOPIA. Local officials were, but not many members of the legislature. Currently city officials (The Board of Directors) assist UTOPIA in keeping the "business" secret from the public. Those incumbents and the secretive UTOPIA management team should be replaced.

UTOPIA is exploring many avenues for generating the necessary revenue. Remember that all they do is sell transport from one point on their network to another. The market for this kind of service is growing rapidly, especially if you're providing transport for wireless/cellular towers. I can't discuss specifics (show me a company willing to show their customer list), but maybe you should go visit with these guys to find out what's going on.

UTOPIA provides addresses they serve with an additional 7 providers, 4 of which serve homes. On average, a home with 4 service providers will pay 25% less than a home with only 2 regardless of which provider they are with. This cost savings is actually greater than the entirety of the bond pledge amount. So yes, they are providing a very valuable service and entirely justify the cost of their existence.

I wouldn't call Provo lucky. Broadweave will run out of investor cash to pay the bond in February at which point the network could go back to the city. I guess a private company isn't having a lot of luck either.

The govenment should never step in where the private sector can do a better job. Snarr buffaloed everyone in Murray with the promise of better internet. Didn't happen and all it does is cost money. Any mayor in any town that supported this should be removed from office at the earliest convenience.

UTOPIA has limited coverage areas even in the cities and towns where it is available. In some places less than 25% of city residents have access to UTOPIA, however their tax dollars will be used to pay.

The current bond situation is likely not UTOPIA's fault, but a result of bank failures.

To address the article's questions (paraphrased):

Why fund UTOPIA?

At the time UTOPIA was started, most parts of member cities were not served by any high speed providers. Those that did offer services used every dirty trick they could to prevent UTOPIA from succeeding.

Does UTOPIA compete fairly?

UTOPIA does not intend to compete at all. It's just a fiber-optic network. Private ISPs provide services on the network. UTOPIA benefits local businesses, like XMission and MSTAR, and keeps money here. Comcast and Qwest could have offered services on the network.

How will it be profitable?

Other cities in states and countries more sparsely populated than Utah have proven that municipal fiber can work. If I could get it, I'd sign up now.

I have no affiliation with UTOPIA or any ISP. I speak only for myself, as a local citizen who is tired of sending money to gigantic out-of-state corporations for half the speed at double the price. You can use Google and the Free Utopia watchdog site (also no affiliation) to verify my claims.

Do an online search of UTOPIA for more information on the state and local government involvement. There is no shortage of UTOPIA information, including deficit spending and legal papers with challenges and questions.

Mike said: "The govenment should never step in where the private sector can do a better job."

And the private sector isn't doing a better job. They offer an inferior product at an inferior price while experiencing financial troubles of their own. Qwest is carrying one heck of a debt load right now and can't afford to spend any real money on network upgrades. Is that the kind of private sector "success" you want us to look at?

Provo lucky? I think not. iProvo was a great idea. It still is. The implementation of the idea was mishandled from the start, and the back-room sweetheart deal that sold the network off to Billings' buddies was just one more instance of the problem.

We should have had an open network in much the same model as Utopia. Instead we got Homenet, then Mstar and inVeracity, and finally the Broadweave fiasco.

Before the sale last year, several people opined that Broadweave would prove to be another disaster like HomeNet. I said then, and I repeat now: those people are irrationally optimistic.

To informed who stated. "Before iProvo ever considered building a fiber network (their original plan called for a HFC network similar to what Comcast offered and Spanish Fork built (successfully)) there was a consulting group, Pinnacle Services (?) that later split and morphed into Dynamic Cities,"
I'm talking about way before Pinnacle, clear back when Provo dreamed up this offering of telecommunications services to fatten up their general fund. It doesn't matter if it's coax, fiber, or wireless, it's municiple meddling in the free market. Pinnacle and the ensuing Dynamic Cities guys came later. Provo was proud of being the big leader in those days and now they just want to hide.

Eutopia just has such a wonderful and comforting sound to it... No wonder people bought into it!

I live in the middle of Salt Lake County. Qwest still does not have even DSL, let alone fiber available. We've been waiting for 7 years for something and we keep getting told that it will be available "in a couple of months." Qwest was all promises when my city was thinking of joining UTOPIA, once we opted out, they forgot all about us.

Taxes Shmaxes! I am so tired of listening to people who have plenty of money whine about any tax, no matter how small, unless it benefits them directly and is paid by someone else.

Who cares whether "Scamcast" and "Money Qwest" can compete (and health insurance companies for that matter). The airwaves belong to the people. We shouldn't have to pay many hundreds of dollars a years to use something developed by the military, with the tax money you whine about.

We should never have allowed either one of those companies to own the infrastructure, just like we don't let power companies own public resources. In the case of Rate Qwest we paid to build the fiber optic networks they use and Scumcast piggybacks.

UTOPIA was sabotaged: Surely you jest, they failed for a number of reasons, too many to list, but the most significant one is they were out of their element.
I sat in on the very first presentaion of UTOPIA, I asked the question how will you fund it, simple they the UTOPIA board said, with revenue bonds.
No body is buying ecommerce type bonds since Europe has gone down the tube to the tune of two and half trillion I answered so nobody will buy them.
We have a different plan and our take rate will be 40% they answered, never happen I replied.
Now after squandering somewhere between 300-400 million and the pit is bottomlees you blame the bank failure for something government should never been involved with.
Either you work for Utopia or you don't know much about business.
This was a flawed plan, worked up by bueracrats from West Valley and Murray both who should be brought up on charges for failure of their fucdiciary duty.
Oh well lets just relect them.