Archive for January, 2007
Monday, January 29th, 2007
MSTAR Ranked Better than Qwest
A poll by Utah Valley Magazine is in, and MSTAR, one of the providers on both UTOPIA and iProvo, beat our Qwest for second-best Internet provider in Utah County. They also came very close to edging out Comcast for first place. This is significant since MSTAR only has service in 7% of surveyed households compared [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Cheers, News by Jesse
Wednesday, January 24th, 2007
Tennessee Fiber Spurs Economic Growth
The tiny town of Jackson, TN (pop: 60,000) has become a new hub for tech companies after rolling out its own municipal fiber project. These companies are doing everything from remote data backups to software hosting using the high-speed network built by the city's power agency. With these kinds of high-speed connections, area businesses don't [...]
No Comments » - Posted in News by Jesse
Wednesday, January 24th, 2007
Fiber Battle in Wilson NC Heating Up
Time Warner showed it wasn't afraid to flex some muscle at a recent public hearing in Wilson, NC concerning their planned deployment of a fiber optic network. Predictably, they pulled out the tired "taxpayer money" and "competing with private enterprise" lines like so many broken records. The city rightly demonstrated that the fiber system isn't [...]
No Comments » - Posted in News by Jesse
Wednesday, January 24th, 2007
Verizon Can’t Make Up Its Mind on Fiber
As much as Verizon likes to hype its FIOS service, it seems to be very non-committal as to who exactly it's going to serve. It recently spun off its landline operations in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine to Fairpoint Communications, a company with no plans to continue the FTTH network started by Verizon. In the [...]
No Comments » - Posted in News by Jesse
Wednesday, January 10th, 2007
Study Shows Benefits of Public Owning Infrastructure
A study by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance argues that public ownership of telecommunications infrastructure is a major boon to taxpayers and municipalities. Among the benefits are increased competition, improved local revenues, lower end-user prices, true Net Neutrality, universal access, and economic development. It seems the only losers are the incumbents who've been used to [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Cheers, News by Jesse
Sunday, January 7th, 2007
Qwest Biding Its Time on Fiber
Don't count on Qwest to roll out universal fiber services anytime soon. Qwest has decided to take its time with FTTH projects, preferring to only roll them out to popular master planned developments as opposed to wide-spread deployment. Given that they've only recently solicited bids for a major fiber project, I'd say that most or [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Jeers, News by Jesse
Sunday, January 7th, 2007
US Broadband Still Low in Fiber
Several news stories have come out recently showing Japan, Korea, and China not only with more broadband deployments than the US, but faster growth as well. This is in spite of efforts by large providers like Verizon and AT&T to roll out new fiber projects like FIOS and U-Verse. Japan now tops 7 million fiber [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Jeers, News by Jesse
Sunday, January 7th, 2007
iProvo Fires Back
Provo took the Reason Foundation to task on its assertion that iProvo is a financial sinkhole, showing that their report was ill-founded and premature. Not only does the city defend loans from the electric fund to make bond payments, but it also shows that the demand for the kind of service that iProvo provides is [...]
