Announcing the New FreeUTOPIA Wiki
Part of the biggest problem with UTOPIA advocacy is a lack of coordinating basic information. To that end, I've setup a new wiki to track information about UTOPIA including the positions of legislators, which cities are considering service and, for the 2008 election cycle, where candidates stand on municipal broadband and other telecommunications issues.
Anyone can participate and add their knowledge. User registration and admin approval will be required before you can contribute in order to prevent spam and defacing. Why not go ahead and register an account so you can help build it up?
The Clipper's Fair Coverage
After the train wreck of sloppy reporting from The Tribune, it's nice to see a news article that, you know, gets the story right. The Clipper has rightfully pointed out that cities always were prepared for the worst-case scenario, paying for the bonds with tax money, and that nobody has been expecting a slam-dunk free lunch. Officials from Layton and Centerville seem comfortable with where the project is and, given the high stakes, that speaks volumes.
Of great interest is a re-working of the model from PacketFront, the company that acquired DynamicCity last year. They bring a lot of experience to the table and have done a thorough top-to-bottom re-evaluation of the current way of doing business. Hopefully this will improve UTOPIA's abysmal policies concerning advertising and publicity, something that has left take rates low since most potential customers hadn't even heard of the project. The details are scarce right now so we don't have much to go on.
Another juicy tidbit: apparently Vineyard voted to become a non-pledging member in December, something that went largely unreported.
Did UTOPIA Dodge a Legislative Bullet?
Survey says: most likely. I've been watching the bills that have been filed by Rep. Frank and Sen. Stephenson, co-chairs of the Government Competition and Privatization Subcommittee, and it appears that no amendments to the Municipal Cable Television and Public Telecommunications Act have been given bill numbers. For all intents and purposes, it's dead, Jim.
This doesn't mean the fight is over. I'm no lawyer (I'm sure some of you are), but it seems that HB75, HB76 and SB45 could all be construed to bring cumbersome new requirements to municipal broadband projects. It's not entirely impossible that Qwest didn't see these as a bad-door way to further bind UTOPIA given Qwest's private meetings with most members of the committee. If you want to keep an eye on these, might I recommend the following handy RSS feed of the bill status?
Setting the Record Straight: XMission Corrects the Tribune
Warren Woodward, director of broadband services at XMission, got an opinion piece published in the Tribune that helps set the record straight on their one-sided article and op-ed lambasting UTOPIA. Take some time to go check it out.
More FUD: The Tribune Attacks Spanish Fork's Network
In what seems to be part of a continuing series, the Salt Lake Tribune has decided to go tilting at windmills once more by attempting to re-classify Spanish Fork's profitable network as a train wreck with tons of hidden subsidies and shoddy accounting. Apparently the Tribune is so focused on that predetermined conclusion that they're more than willing to discard any and all explanations to the contrary.
For starters, there's the public reason given for transfers from various city departments: they're buying a stake in the city-wide network for their own internal uses. For instance, Spanish Fork's electric department uses the network for the same reasons as iProvo, to conduct remote breaker monitoring throughout the city. The water and sewer departments no doubt have similar uses of their own. Given this, it only makes sense for them to own part of the network. The shame is that Spanish Fork is trying to have city agencies pay for their usage and ownership of the network, unlike Provo, and they still get hung out to dry in the papers. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, huh?
Unsurprisingly, the Utah "Taxpayers" Association was on the spot to provide some more "told you so" flavor quotes. Apparently getting quotes to provide a balanced story are way beyond the Tribune's capabilities. It's proof positive that you just can't trust what you read in the papers these days.
Past Due: Have Veracity and MSTAR Not Paid Their iProvo Bills?
It looks like another storm is brewing for iProvo and finances are the question once again. This time the anger is being vented at the providers on the network, Veracity/Nuvont and MSTAR, who are allegedly behind by almost $1M on their bills to the city. The state auditor is acting on an anonymous tip and has requested that the city forward three years worth of financial records and 6 months worth of recordings from closed-door meetings, the latter of which is a highly irregular request.
The city says that the matter is a difference of opinion on when bills should be paid. According to Mayor Billings, there's no payment issues beyond that. Veracity has also stated that they are no more than 30 days past due at the very most on any bill and that amount wouldn't come close to a cool million.
One commenter at the Deseret Morning News noted that the timing of such an anonymous tip, so close to the obviously misleading Tribune articles on UTOPIA's finances, almost seems orchestrated. I wouldn't put it past Qwest to stoop to such a level.
Read more in the Tribune and DMN.
UTOPIA Supporters to Meet in Sandy
I was recently contacted by someone from Sandy who's planning on getting a group of friends and neighbors together to have Sandy to reconsider UTOPIA membership. They'll be taking advantage of the public comments period at the City Council meeting on Tuesday January 8 at 7PM. If you're interested in meeting other UTOPIA supporters and getting the project moving in Sandy, I highly recommend you go to this meeting. (I'd normally be there myself, but work has me going to Winnipeg this week.)
Out of the Woods? Vonage Settles All Outstanding Patent Lawsuits
After getting sued by all of the major telecommunications providers in rapid succession, Vonage might finally be over and doe with patent issues. They've recently settled a suit from Nortel Networks for a cross-licensing agreement instead of cash, a boon considering the big bucks they've had to shell out to companies like AT&T. Given their cash-poor state and some recent reliability issues, it seems that only a hatred for traditional phone companies and price-gouging by new cable entrants is keeping the provider afloat. I've overall been happy with Vonage despite some of their tech support shortcomings, but I've been a bit spooked by the possibility that they'll pull a SunRocket sometime in the near future.
The Internet Crunch: Copper Lacks Capacity for Next-Generation Networks
If you don't currently read Robert X. Cringely's column on PBS.com, you had better rectify that ASAP. A few weeks ago, he wrote on the coming crunch that's going to cripple cable networks unless they make some big changes. The in-depth analysis gives you a good feel for how close to the brink Big Cable has come.
The Salt Lake Tribune Gets It All Wrong
It's one thing to see an organization with an agenda produce a slanted and worthless article. It's an entirely different thing to see a major newspaper do the same thing. As trusted gatekeepers of information, we expect journalists to aspire to higher standards to report the whole story from an objective viewpoint. Sadly, it appears that the Tribune's Steven Oberbeck isn't into that kind of thing.
The holes in the story are numerous. There's no mention of the Qwest lawsuit or their illegal practices to block access to telephone poles. There's no mention of the delays with disbursing money from the RUS loan. There's no mention that Paul Morris left UTOPIA to go into semi-retirement and Roger Black probably has his hands full as the lawyer for the Utah League of Cities and Towns. Even more disturbing is the insinuation that UTOPIA has put tax dollars at risk when not one red cent of money has been taken from pledging cities to cover operations or the debt service. It's one of the sloppiest pieces of supposed journalism I've ever seen.
Thankfully, the Trib's readers are way too smart for it. Many of them have been filling in the gaps that Mr. Oberbeck left out, doing the job he should have done in the first place. Unfortunately, many have already fallen for the position piece disguised as news. Shame on the Tribune for running such a poorly researched article and shame on Steven Oberbeck for writing it.
UPDATE: The Trib now has something up on it in the Opinion section where, as one reader noted, it belonged from the get-go.