Archive for March, 2008
Friday, March 21st, 2008
UTOPIA Unveils the new Financial Model
After months of working with PacketFront, the company that acquired DynamicCity, UTOPIA has pulled back the curtain on their new plan and model. They plan to re-bond for a longer term (32 years instead of 20 years) with a lower interest rate, adding about $20M in cash to their reserves. This will also improve [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Cheers, News by Jesse
Thursday, March 20th, 2008
Campaign 2008: The First Round of E-mails
I've just finished touching up the questions on the wiki and have sent the first round of e-mail questionnaires to federal candidates in Utah. Once I have one last e-mail address, I'll also fire off a copy to the candidates for governor. Hopefully we'll get some speedy responses and be able to start figuring [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Communications, Website by Jesse
Monday, March 17th, 2008
Woods Cross City Council to Discuss UTOPIA Again
I've just gotten word that the Woods Cross City Council will be discussing UTOPIA membership once again at their next meeting tomorrow, Tuesday March 18th at 6:30PM. The City Council has been waiting for announcements concerning UTOPIA's new model before deciding on any action and hasn't heard anything from them since they took the issue [...]
4 Comments » - Posted in Events by Jesse
Sunday, March 16th, 2008
Could iProvo Be Up For Grabs?
The word on the street is that some recent closed-door meetings with Provo Mayor Lewis Billings and members of the Provo City Council could mean that iProvo is about ready for some big changes. Right now we've got nothing more than speculation, but the Deseret Morning News points to an obvious possibility: Provo could be [...]
No Comments » - Posted in News by Jesse
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
Big Broadband Means Big Economic Gains
You know that old saying that you have to spend money to make money? It seems like that's where our national broadband policy has come to. With slow average speeds and high per-megabit prices, EDUCASE, an association of college IT managers, says that it could run up to $100B to fix our national infrastructure [...]
5 Comments » - Posted in Essays, News by Jesse
Monday, March 10th, 2008
Campaign 2008: Finding UTOPIA-Friendly Candidates
One of the biggest problems facing supporters of municipal broadband projects is a distinct lack of information on where a candidate stands. All too often, you'll only find out where they are after it's too late and we get an SB66 heaped upon us. To that end, I've decided that it's time that we know [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in Communications, Website by Jesse
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
Qwest Says Fiber Isn’t Happening
CNet has an interview with Edward Mueller, the CEO of Qwest, that reveals their direction on fiber optic networks:
CNet: Let's shift gears here for a minute to broadband. You talked about Qwest's commitment to upgrading its network by taking fiber to the node or fiber to the neighborhood. Why doesn't Qwest follow Verizon's lead and [...]