Comments about ‘UTOPIA is seeking stimulus funding’

What is this welfare for failed government pet projects?

Don't let the corporate propaganda machine fool you. UTOPIA moves us forward as cities, as a state, and as a nation. It's nearly 2010. Fiber to the home should already be a reality to every doorstep in America.

No it's the right time, and it is Utah, "the right place" and we have a Governor by default that dont have a clue cuz he was on Huntsman Jr.s left side, cuz I know he ain't right! I am gonna launch a campaign to run as an Independent canidate for Governor. Your Governor, Not A Puppet for big money, I will do the job for free! My public civil service to my home state and all it's people. If you would like to hear more contact me at thekidzfounder@yahoo.com

I agree that fiber to every home should be a reality by now, but, UTOPIA is a terrible model to follow. $3000.00 start-up costs for customers? Are you kidding me? Plus the money that has been spent for infrastructure. I'd like to see the total cost per customer UTOPIA as incurred to have brought it to a measly 45,000 homes since the project began. UTOPIA was a waste from the beginning.

Is this a private company? If it is, then it should not be subsidized by the government using money it doesn't have.

It can't support itself the way real companies do.

UTOPIA is going to need all the help it can get. It is an involvement that cities should not have ever entered into and our children and grandchildren in the 11 cities will continue to pay for it.

Leave the risks up the the private sector. Don't ask taxpayers to get on the hook for things like this.

This is a joke. Utopia has already tapped their local cities coffers (Murray--1.5 million), just for this year. My neighbor gets random calls at 2 am from the fiber that Utopia uses and their support team. It still and will have to go through QWESTS main hub $$$, SO IT WILL NOT BE SELF SUSTAINING unless We Cities buy out Qwest.

"It's 2010 and Fiber should be a reality to every doorstep in American." Please. There should be world peace and no illness and free medical care as well. Get some reality in your life. Let the free enterprise model work. This is just more pork, more tax, more waste and more unnecessary cost because somebody thinks that everybody should have "true internet." What is that?? I guess Comcast provides false Internet. Let the markets work and keep government out!! I don't want my tax dollars spent in this manner.

Why does UTOPIA need stimulus money? Why does it need $3,000 apiece from Brigham City homes that want to get hooked up? I remember sitting in my Payson city counsel meeting and hearing that UTOPIA not only would cover all its own costs, but would be a revenue windfall to the participating cities. They asked prospective participants to think about other services that could be provided or enhanced foer residents with this extra cash. The pressure pitch from the creators was that the first cities to get in would get a bigger share of the windfall!

Now we know the first cities in will get to cough up more of their sales tax to keep those bonds out of default. Can we get a follow up story on how much our participating cities will be shelling out this year and next to be a part of this mess?

When is it going to end! We the taxpayers thur our so called leaders, keep giving money to these BLOOD SUCKING Companys to do there business and they never pay it back to the tax payer. Our leaders are letting people die, because we cannot afford health care, or medicine to keep us alive. So when judgement day comes, we know were a leaders and greedy corporate leaders are going. I hope all you politicians think about that!!! Our troops are dieing in vain to protect our country from tyrants, and I guess we can not fight the enemy within, their the ones detroying our country. With a sad Heart, Uncle Sam

Free enterprise would not result in world peacr or free medical care. Don't kid yourself. Free enterprise would bring the America people further into debt than it already is.

No to this idea and heck no!

yeah give them money. comcast charges too much for poor service. att requires 2 year contract and limited bandwidth along with wireless carriers except maybe cricket. dsl? may be good in some areas depending on what you are using the internet for. i'm not in layton, but bigger it grows the more likely it will come here. give them the money to expand or you know give me some money to move where they are expanding also works. and they never pay it backk to tax payers? how much you currently pay for your BUNDLED cable service? 99.99? ouch. cable internet by itself runs about 69.99. uploading photos to facebook and data storage online backup takes weeks to do with comcast due to the limitations they put on the service. my computer crashes and then what? mozy backup and rest of data backup are currently losing money due to slow upload times. increase bandwidth with cheaper prices than comcast not only creates local jobs higher paying jobs, it also creates jobs elsewhere. give company money to give service to taxpayers gives jobs to taxpayers as well.

UTOPIA is a horrible money pit. Why don't we just flush the money down the toilet. We will see the results much quicker that way.

What these Utopia users are saying is that they like the subsidized services, but don't want to pay market rates for equivalent service.

Tax payers are getting tired of subsidizing the few Utopia users. Utopia rates are too low for the service they are trying to deliver.

Why doesn't UTOPIA hire Kevin Garlick from iProvo fame to run them into the ground as well. He brought the idea for iProvo from Logan to Provo, duped the city leadership into buying into it and then managed the entire thing into oblivion costing the citizens of Provo 62 million dollars and counting. The best part, Provo is still paying him 150,000 dollars a year to now run Provo Power into the ground. Why does this person still have a job?

Those of us that have it LOVE it.

The article neglects to mention that UTOPIA's application has been challenged by Comcast and Qwest for broadband availability in these communities. Why was this information left out?

UTOPIA is not a private corporation, it is an interlocal entity owned and controlled by its member cities. Its mission is to build core communications infrastructure that any service provider can use. This is no different than the role of cities in building local roads. Anyone can use the roads the cities provide. The problem is the private market's "toll" roads are really just dirt paths. In the information age we need high speed information highways in order to grow our economic base and private markets are simply not building them here.