Fri 16 May 2008
Broadweave announced today that they plan to go one step further than buying out the customer lists and acquire Veracity as well. Veracity has over 10,000 clients but only a handful are on UTOPIA or iProvo. Most of Veracity's customer base is in T-1 lines or DSL services as well as business voice communications. This means that Broadweave plans to grow overnight from 1100 to over 20,000 subscribers. I seriously doubt they can handle all of that growth.
It's worth noting that Nuvont, which is still a provider on UTOPIA, buys all of its services from Veracity. XMission also has a deal to buy VoIP services from Veracity. It will be interesting to see if Broadweave will remain on UTOPIA and continue these contracts for services or pull an AT&T on us.
See more from the Daily Herald.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Actually, the buyout of Veracity helps them with the growth. They are getting a company with processes already in place, and a lot of existing customers on the iProvo network. Smart move IMO.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
I have to Agree with squash on this one, altho it also makes me want to know where their money tree is.
I hope they are getting money from somewhere other then pure vulture capital.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I dunno. A smaller company buying out a much larger one usually leads to problems with integrating systems and processes, integrating customers and integrating employees. It also raises questions about how much cash Broadweave is going to have to sustain their buying binge and continue to build networks. The assets from OEN aren’t going to come cheap and I’m sure Veracity had a peach of a deal presented to them given that iProvo is a very small fraction of their customer base.
May 16th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
I too agree with Squash and say Go Broadweave!
May 16th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
An intersting note — Nuvont CEO, Brandon Grove is mentioned in the Deseret news article as a future Broadweave customer as he launches the nation-wide VoIP service company “ViaPath.” The Viapath name and domain have been owned by Steve Christensen since circa 1998. So what happens to Nuvont? Is there another acquisition announcement yet to come?
May 16th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Jesse, I am going to try and give you a lesson on business. What do you think Qwerst charges for transport fees to Veracity? What do you think iProvo charges for transport fees to Veracity. Is it at all possible that the low amount of customers served on iProvo is because iProvo is much more expensive to transport for Veracity. Consider what has just happened, Veracity will now pay pennies on the dollar to transport over iProvo vs what they are currently paying over Qwest. Are you following what I am suggesting here. Veracity likely pays millions of dollars to qwest for transport. Take that and now put the cost to transport those services back in Veracities pockets…. Holy crap, not only are they profitable now, but you add millions back to their bottom line. Man now you break the real monopoly that you are so against.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
snack: that would make sense, except that maybe 500 of Veracity’s 10,000 customers are on iProvo. That’s, what, a whopping 5%? Hardly enough for them to get a large jump in revenues. I also doubt your implication that iProvo has higher transport fees than Qwest does when a T-1 circuit can easily run $300+ without any service on it.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
“In the long run, Broadweave’s model of being both the network owner and the service provider will result in the best experience for the customers,” said Brandon Grove, Nuvont CEO in a statement.
Where does that sound familiar? Oh yeah. My experience with Qwest over the years:
The Internet Service: Terrible and expensive.
The speed: Oh, one day we’ll be lucky if they bring DSL speed to the area (STILL NO DSL here in lots of places in Utah). And when they do bring it here, the maximum upload is a measly 896 Kbps under the most ideal circumstances (if you’re lucky).
The customer support: Hello Indian call-center agent who I waited on hold for for 30 minutes and can’t solve my problem.
I guess all I need to do is change providers. Oh wait, there are no other providers. Great.
What motivation does a provider like Broadweave have to make sure their service is good, the speeds are good, etc. if there’s no competition and open market?
May 16th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
I believe Broadweave has Qwest and Comcast as competition in Provo.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
I had Qwest DSL in Springville and had 8 Megabit down. So “896 Kbps under the most ideal circumstances (if you’re lucky)” doesn’t hold water with me.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Jesse: Does your Cynicism have no bounds? I would agree with snack that transport fees were probably very similar between Iprovo and Qwest. Why would Provo city sell it for so much less than Qwest or any other carrier? That would be money Provo City would lose, not it’s carriers.
Have we not learned about transport fees from the UTOPIA debacle? They expected to make $60+ dollars a household!? I very highly doubt that Qwest themselves makes that per residential household. I know I pay about $70 for DSL and a phone line from Qwest. Which would indicate that carriers on UTOPIA (and probably IProvo) have very slim margins on those networks, having to compete with Qwest’s prices and all.
As for a T-1 I know my business can get a T-1 from XO, Integra or Veracity for around $400. I would venture to guess that they are paying Qwest significantly less than that for their Transport, or they wouldn’t be making money.
If Veracity is making $10/month on each of its customers and 500 of them are IProvo, $5000/month increase would sure be nice…
Remember “negativity breeds negativity”.
May 16th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Hey “Dude”, if you read my original post you’ll see that the 896 Kbps figure I mentioned (which is less than a Megabit) is the UPLOAD speed and not the download. I’m glad you’re so lucky to live in a good area where you can actually get those kinds of speeds, as I said, there are major populated areas in Utah that STILL DO NOT HAVE ANY DSL. And of those that can get it, 7 Mbps is only available in areas very close to a DSLAM or CO.
May 16th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
You’ve all missed the big picture. Sure they are getting Veracity, but it is a different business model. As mentioned, they have very few fiber customers. Mstar is the company with all the experience, people and processes to succeed. That’s why they have over 70% of the iProvo customers. Just buying Mstar’s customers isn’t enough. Broadweave is still going to have to learn how to deliver a triple play to a very large and demanding customer base that had some options on the fiber network. Now it is only one and if they don’t do it right, Broadweave bails and Provo is really in a pickle. It will be and interesting thing to watch unfold. If their CEO pulls this off he should be CEO of the year. I’m glad I don’t live in Provo.
May 16th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Responding to various threads in these comments:
I am much more comfortable knowing Veracity’s people are involved in the operations. They do have experience that I see very lacking with Broadweave.
On the other hand, this will cause some upheaval at Veracity. The offices are moving from Provo to South Jordan. The CEO will change. There will need to be some integration of technical staff, and unless the CEO makes a really conscious effort he will automatically favor the people he knows over the people he doesn’t.
The consultants reports suggested the business transport fees were too high, making iProvo less competitive in comparison to other carriers. This acquisition will change that, as there are no longer transport fees for using iProvo (the in house network).
Overall, this is a good business move. I’m still critical of the deal with Provo, though. I think the city can do better, and should take the time to try to do better. And I would prefer to see the open model given a little more opportunity to work. We have consultant recommendations that we haven’t tried yet.
May 16th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Jarrod: Maybe this means they’ll bother to get a business license.
May 16th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
A smaller company acquiring a larger company does NOT usually result in failure. Just look at the buyout of AT&T by SBC several years ago. I think this buyout of Veracity give Broadweave more credibility. They realized they were only getting half of what they wanted, a network but no customers. Now they get it all, and the experience to run it. Veracity also brings much needed revenue and business accounts already in place throughout Utah.
May 16th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Squash,
I would say it’s more that Broadweave realized that they are less than half of what was needed. They needed someone who could actually do what they were promising, and they needed it fast.
With ownership of the network and no regulation of their behavior, one way or another they can force the customers over to themselves. No need to actually buy them. Just wait and see what happens to MStar and Nuvont.
May 16th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
KLT,
This is true. Veracity doesn’t like dealing with residential customers. This is why Nuvont was created. Veracity pushed the residential customers out the door and kept the higher margin business customers.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
I am just curious as to why any of you are giving this Jesse the time of day.
He has:
zero knowledge about business transactions, zero history in owning a business,
zero knowledge about fiber to the home,
zero knowledge of ISP business related items zero knowledge about how to run a company
zero knowledge about how to grow a business,
zero friends like Sorensen Capital
zero knowledge about corporate interactions
zero credentials for critiquing guys like Fraser Bullock
zero credentials for critiquing anything of technical benefit
zero educational background
an A+ *cough* certification
Get yourselves in check and let this guy continue to rule at World of Warcraft, not try to Google his way into subjects of business matters.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Thanks String for that insightful comment. To bad the majority of us have been reading Jesse’s site for years and believe he has a head on his shoulders.
Instead of attacking him personally, refute his observations.
Use this system to explain why Jesse is wrong instead of just making me assume you are a Broadweave shill.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Tom: My observation is that attacking the source is an avenue of last resort. It means you cannot refute or explain away the key points and it only lends validity to the claims. I welcome the trolls and sock puppets for that very reason.
May 17th, 2008 at 10:22 am
string, do you have ties to Broadweave? I have no financial ties or interests with UTOPIA, iProvo, Broadweave, XMission, Dynamic City, or any of the UTOPIA/iProvo cities or providers. The only interest I have is a desire to see broadband deployments succeed in Utah (and I would benefit if I could get decent bandwidth to my home/business). I believe this infrastructure is critical to our future in this state.
Having a single provider has not seemed to serve us well, which is why the goal of UTOPIA to have an open network is great, it actually encourages free market competition whereas a single fiber provider would have no real competition. Will Broadweave commit to keeping upload speeds on iProvo at multi-meg levels? From early plans it doesn’t seem so. What’s the recourse then if I as a consumer need such speeds? Switch providers? How do you do that when all you have is one? What if they block certain types of Internet traffic (as Comcast and others have recently started doing?) What will we do then? On one of my Qwest DSL deployments, they started blocking SMTP port 25. The level 1 support agents that took forever to answer and were experiencing “high call volume” didn’t even know what SMTP meant.
Now, I’ve had XMission as an ISP and love their service because when I have a problem they have tech support agents locally available 24/7 and they are competent enough to know how to setup and fix things I wouldn’t dream of even trying to ask Qwest or Comcast.
Sadly, XMission was never allowed as a provider of iProvo for whatever reason, and Qwest is trying to shut providers like them out of it’s networks (say hello to Qwest’s new Fiber to the Node program). When one provider rules the day, the customers suffer from sub-par service and no real price competition. Companies love it when they get a monopoly on service. They don’t have to worry about actually pleasing customers because of little threat of them going elsewhere.
Now, vetting Broadweave is a good thing. Sure, maybe it isn’t that important that Broadweave hasn’t filed properly for business licenses, or didn’t pay their taxes on time and had a judgment against them, or the fact that they are basically bootstrapping a new broadband company without extensive experience. Maybe Jesse has made a bigger deal out of some of these things than necessary, but I think when a decision of this magnitude is to be made it should be vetted from all sides. This is PUBLIC money we are dealing with and PUBLIC infrastructure.
Shouldn’t we vet a company that is making enormous promises to Provo and by extension to all the citizens whose public money was used to build the city network? Shouldn’t we ask the tough questions if Broadweave can “pull it off” and provide better service than another provider and give the city the best band for their buck? Remember, it has already been pointed out that Provo could be left in a worse position in a few years if Broadweave doesn’t succeed.
I will ask again the critical question: Why not put out a public RFP for bids to buy iProvo? If the city wants to sell, what do they possibly have to loose by asking providers from all around the country to bid on buying the network?
May 17th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Transport costs plus equipment costs on Iprovo were higher than a T1 for most business services, which made it difficult to sell to Businesses, especially small businesses on iProvo.
The Merger with Veracity will not be that difficult, Veracity’s business will not change much. They are bringing the business knowledge and expertise in running a Telecommunications company (with profitability actually being a factor) and Broadweave will probably be integrating thier systems with Veracity’s more than the other way around.
KLT is clueless, MStar only has 70% of the customer base on IProvo because they sold their product below their cost… which is why they owe iProvo $1000000. Mstar doesn’t even have their own data NOC or Voice Switch, they resell a VOIP provider out of Colorado. Hardly the experience that Fraser Bullock would be hoping for when putting his money in the game.
May 17th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Mike, XMission is a great company, but how would they provide Voice and Video Services? They are a great company because they focus on one thing and one thing only, Data. They didn’t get on the network becuase they only provided one product, and that wouldn’t a significant enough revenue stream for Iprovo.
Your BIG concern about upload speeds is a non issue. The upload speeds are not going to change, why would they? Why does Xmissions DSL only has a 896k upload? maybe it is a network limitation, their aren’t network limitations like DSL or Cable on the FIber network.
Also, I don’t understand your concern about a single provider. Number 1 their isn’t one single provider, there are plenty:
Comcast, Qwest, Xmission (dsl), Integra, XO, Paetec, Dish Network, and Direct TV and now Vercity/Broadweave. I think you can see the fight to drive down prices in the residential market will continue. Qwest and Comcast are constantly beating eachother up with price drops, at least now Broadweave will be able to compete with the price decreases, whereas Veracity, Nuvont and MSTAR couldn’t (and still make money) because they had to pay Iprovo their transport fees. They will own the network, so their margins will be higher, thus they can now compete. You watch, Comcast and Qwest will start giving customers on their network free service for multiple months to keep their customers, same thing that they did when Iprovo started selling originally.
May 17th, 2008 at 11:38 am
TCOE wrote: “Mike, XMission is a great company, but how would they provide Voice and Video Services? They are a great company because they focus on one thing and one thing only, Data.”
XMission has started rolling out voice service recently. Also, what is the problem with having one company provide data and another voice or television?
“Your BIG concern about upload speeds is a non issue. The upload speeds are not going to change, why would they? Why does Xmissions DSL only has a 896k upload? maybe it is a network limitation, their aren’t network limitations like DSL or Cable on the FIber network.”
XMission DSL only has 896K upload because that’s all Qwest allows over their lines, which DSL is sold on. They could use a different DSL technology, for example, that would provide better speeds but they refuse to do so. On UTOPIA, XMission offers 15/30/50 Megabits of upload because the UTOPIA network allows more freedom to the providers and doesn’t set up artificial limits.
Also, you say their upload speeds aren’t going to change, but can we be sure of that? Broadweave has some fiber to the home right now in other areas and their maximum speeds are only 1 Megabit up. Why? And Qwest with their new FTTN deployment could easily choose to offer more upload as well, but they do not. Why? Bottom line is we can’t be sure that they are going to offer the service we want and with no competition, what recourse do we have? The free market is a beautiful thing because it fosters innovation, lowers prices, and forces companies to compete. With the Broadweave deal, we get none of that.
“Also, I don’t understand your concern about a single provider. Number 1 their isn’t one single provider, there are plenty:
Comcast, Qwest, Xmission (dsl), Integra, XO, Paetec, Dish Network, and Direct TV and now Vercity/Broadweave.”
With this buyout deal though, there would only be ONE provider using next-generation technology. So to use next-gen tech, there would be only ONE choice. As far as all the other providers you listed, most of them rely on using Qwest’s lines that the FCC forces them to share. However, they are trying to get out of that (and they have already stated they will not open their new FTTN deployments to other companies), see this article about it.
Which leaves basically three providers from your list: Comcast, (which has even slower upload speeds than Qwest), Qwest itself, which even on brand new technology that they will not share with other providers and will not provide good upload speeds, and the satellite providers, which have TERRIBLE upload speeds and extremely high latency.
Compare that with say, UTOPIA where I can get next-generation speeds and ANY provider. If one provider is providing poor upload or poor service, it’s easy to switch. Not so if Broadweave buys iProvo.
In addition, with Broadweave being the only provider of fiber to the premesis, can we be sure they will provide good connections to upstream providers? Lots of ISPs here in Utah completely oversell their bandwidth and have terrible routes to the rest of the Internet. XMission, on the other hand, has huge upstream connections to AFS, UUNet, XO, AT&T, PAIX, and SLCPeering. They also monitor the integrity of their network to ensure good latency and available bandwidth. How can we be sure Broadweave would do that? I’m not saying that we could trust XMission either if they were the only monopoly in town, but XMission HAS to provide good service because they have direct competition over the same networks. Broadweave won’t if they buy the network and become the sole provider.
But as I said before, if Provo is bent on selling, why not at least give companies like XMission and others the chance to bid on it? It is the responsible thing to do with PUBLIC money. I call on Provo to do what’s in the best public interest and do an open bidding process rather than doing everything behind closed doors and pretending to the public nothing was going on.
May 17th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Because companies like xMission have no experience running their own network and only provide one service (only recently two, and the voice service is outsourced). I’d be interested to see if xMission even wanted to buy the network. A sale to them would have meant a double play at best.
Broadweave has the experience (granted on a smaller scale) to both run the network and run their services. They also plan to invest in the network so further their advantage over Qwest/Comcast.
I seriously doubt Qwest or Comcast would be interested in buying. They already own significant infrastructure in the valley. So who does that leave? Mstar? Veracity? Both suffer from the same problems I stated above with xMission. And while Veracity could likely come up with the money, the same can’t be said of Mstar.
I guess you could say AT&T or Verizon might be interested, but neither are building FTTH in Utah. And both of their FTTH networks are based on PON, so they’d have to either change this one out or focus on running something different then they are used to. It is also unlikely that a 36,000 network would be of much interest to them. They are currently focused on only the largest cities.
May 17th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I agree with TCOE and Mike.
The only real data we have to go off of is current customers of Broadweave and or Veracity. I have heard very little grumblings about the service at TM, mostly about the video service not being available yet. Are there any Veracity customers out there, on the IProvo or UTOPIA network, that have comments on the service, technical support, or upload speeds.
I would guess that Broadweave would be using Veracity’s backbone for internet. Especially since Broadweave doesn’t have a large pipe, MSTAR doesn’t have a backbone of their own and Nuvont buys services from Veracity. So the only hope for the IProvo customers is that Veracity is a good provider and that Broadweave builds upon Veracity’s internet infrastructure quickly to ensure that the addition of the MSTAR customers doesn’t effect the upload/download speeds on the entire network.
As for xmission, I haven’t heard anything about them offering voice services. The question that comes to my mind is how? Did they buy a class 5 switch? Or are they paying another company, with a switch, to do those services? If they are using someone else’s switch, is it a company that is going to help xmission maintain the awesome service that they always have on internet? Or are they going to have spotty VOIP services like residences have been seeing on the IProvo and UTOPIA networks to date?
May 17th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Mike: XMission is buying their Voice services from Veracity.
With your “free market” logic, the free market is dependant on the Government as the provider of that free market, that ain’t free market. They provide the lines and the “Free Market Companies” are dependant on the pricing from the Government and the network from the Government… bogus!
Mike wrote “Also, what is the problem with having one company provide data and another voice or television?”
There isn’t one, but apparently that didn’t fit what iProvo wanted (it aint’ a free market with the government running the show), and that is why I have DSL from Veracity, Phone from Veracity, and Direct TV.
Your argument about Iprovo making it a free market is completely flawed. Government intervention into a free market takes away the “Free” out of Free market.
What is your fascination with Upload Speeds? I am just curious. Most residential customers aren’t that concerned with what their upload speeds are, unless they are hosting a Website out of their home, or participating in illegal PTP.
I have a family member that has comcast at his home and I did a speedtest at 6PM in the evening and he got 20Mbps down and 2 Mbps up, i did 10 different tests and it came back the same, I was astonished. Not only are companies that we all hate having a bandwidth price war, but a bandwidth war as well. Don’t expect that to change with the merger of Veracity and Broadweave. They will have to jump into the battle just as well as anyone else.
Mike it sounds like you are more concerned about the taxpayers footing the bill for better upload speeds than for free market to drive the technology. How do you expect Iprovo to upgrade their network to put in up to date devices on their network, to do any sort of upgrade when the company that has 70% of the customers doesn’t pay their bills for 8 months and the network is losing 2 million dollars a year (and growing)? Taxpayers won’t foot the bill, it is too political, and the Politicians won’t sacrifice their careers by admitting the need for an upgrade and more cash for the taxpayers to front, and when the prices to the service providers goes up because iprovo is losing money, the service providers will jump ship or sink. THe wholesale model will not work because the services providers can’t make a profit, with the exception of Veracity. And Veracity’s model is not going after Residents who are the most fickel and expensive customers to service.
May 17th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
TCOE,
The iProvo system has their own video service. So whoever buys it will get that setup. I believe MSTAR, Veracity, & Nuvont just sell it. I am pretty sure that all customers get the same video service. Channel 1 is the iProvo channel.
So you get all the head end equip with the purchase of iProvo. So you instantly get video service. I expect Broadweave will try and get the video service pipped up to Lehi for Traverse Mountain. Probably buy a fiber from XO from Provo to up there and into whatever setup they have for Traverse Mountain.
So if Xmission purchased iProvo they would become triple play instantly.
May 17th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Tom,
Not true. iProvo did provide the headend, but the service providers must get their own content contracts from Hollywood. If you look at the channel lineup from mstar and veracity, they are not the same. Those content contracts are the reason. So even if xmission were to become a service provider, or even buy the network, they still have to negotiate content contracts. Not an impossible process, but also not a trivial one either. And it would certainly not be “instant”. The fact that xMission doesn’t do video on Utopia today is evidence that they aren’t interested in it.
May 17th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Tom,
I disagree. Xmission would have the video portion of the IProvo network, which is pretty awful (you can see it’s full glory at the Wingers in the mall). But, they would still not have voice services. Which, from what I hear, is the biggest issue on the IProvo network. If what TCOE is saying is true, Xmission would have been buying that from Veracity. Which then goes back to a monopoly, with Veracity and as the beneficiary, on the IProvo network. Especially if xmission forced MSTAR to pay their $950,000 bill most likely bankrupting MSTAR in the process.
If this did occur would xmission keep IProvo as an “open network”? Would anyone in this situation? Would xmission then buy Veracity? It makes you wonder… I see why Pete Ashdown is so upset. If he had the oportunity to buy IProvo xmission would be the beneficiary of a monopoly.
It really think we would be left in the same situation no matter who bought IProvo. There are too many cooks in the pot to make this a clean deal.
BTW: Still no comment from current MSTAR, Veracity , Broadweave or Nuvont customers? That is who this is going to effect the most.
May 17th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
“With your “free market” logic, the free market is dependant on the Government as the provider of that free market, that ain’t free market. They provide the lines and the “Free Market Companies” are dependant on the pricing from the Government and the network from the Government… bogus!”
All free markets depends on government to succeed and without government there would be no free markets. The government sets up rules and enforces them according to it’s interests. For example, people can enter into contracts and ask the government to intervene when others don’t play by the rules. Government’s role absolutely essential to ensure a level playing field within certain boundaries. In my philosophical view, the amount of government regulation should be the minimum necessary to make a market “effective” for the benefit of both providers and consumers. Anti-trust laws were setup in this country to prevent monopolies (because the government has an inherent interest in preventing monopolies that help providers but hurt consumers). But in some cases (such as this), infrastructure presents what economists call “natural monopoly”, where the market is more effective with fewer competitors. The government recognizes this and allows some types of monopolies but reserves the necessary right in these cases to heavily regulate them (e.g.: Utah PUC, FCC, etc). I believe that when markets of natural monopoly exist, government should foster initiatives to enhance the free market where possible.
If it became possible in the future for individuals to effectively produce electricity in their houses, for example, government should make a way for power lines–owned by a government-sponsored monopoly, Utah Power–to be “shared” to allow homeowners to resell power back to the grid. This would be an example of government fostering free-market principles in a market that otherwise would be dominated by one monopoly (which government has already recognized is not the best setup but sometimes necessary).
All of my logic is based around looking into the future. Fast forward a few years in the future where a 100 Mbps connection is no longer fast enough to power new technologies. What mediums will be able to continue to provide speeds in that range? Barring a completely new invention of medium, the only answer is fiber. We already know today that fiber is capable data transfer speeds of somewhere in the terabit/sec range.
When you recognize that the other infrastructures will never be able to match what fiber will do as far as speed AND latency (critically important for real-time communication) then it becomes clear fiber is the way of the future and no other infrastructure will be able to compete. So when you talk about all these different competitors, that may be the case today, but it won’t tomorrow. Satellite and wireless won’t stand up, neither will any others, BPL, or whatever. And the whole point of building this network was to provide a “next-generation” service that could last far into the future and provide world-class infrastructure for future applications and needs. When you look at what those applications might be, you think about things like live video/voice, telecommuting, telemedicine, teleconferencing, enhanced VR, live security camera feeds, public safety and reporting, etc, etc.
“What is your fascination with Upload Speeds? I am just curious. Most residential customers aren’t that concerned with what their upload speeds are, unless they are hosting a Website out of their home, or participating in illegal PTP.”
Simple, upload is going to be necessary for new technology and communication going forward, but more importantly now, there are lots of applications that would be useful and important.
With slow upload speeds, I can’t do a million things that I’d like to be able to do. For example, backing up my hard drives and databases at night to a remote location, putting security camera feeds on the Internet, live teleconferencing with people at work instead of having to drive there, hosting a community television station, playing next-generation games, hosting a website at my house, running a home business, etc.
“I have a family member that has comcast at his home and I did a speedtest at 6PM in the evening and he got 20Mbps down and 2 Mbps up, i did 10 different tests and it came back the same, I was astonished.”
Having done extensive testing with Comcast, I can tell you that you won’t get those kinds of rates on a sustained basis. They use PowerBoost to give it a temporary speed jump which will make it look fast in a test but not in actual intense use.
“THe wholesale model will not work because the services providers can’t make a profit, with the exception of Veracity.”
I refuse to believe that. Providers are making it work on Utopia, like XMission. And a wholesale model already exists over Qwest’s copper infrastructure today that has tons of providers (though Qwest would LOVE to get rid of them and only has them because the Telecommunications Act of 1996 forces them to). What needs to happen is a bigger range of potential subscribers to get more retail service providers interested in the network. This is what will give UTOPIA an advantage, going forward they will have a large potential subscriber base.
May 17th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
scoop: Given Pete’s long-standing support for open networks, I would guess that he would. And speaking of open networks, it’s amusing that MSTAR made an offer to buy the network that was turned down in October 2007. One of the chief reasons was concern that it would no longer be an open network. There’s some irony for you.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
I would suspect that the full reason for turning down MStar’s bid had something to do with their not paying their bills to Provo.
May 17th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
My understanding is that at the time MSTAR made their offer they were all paid up and the offer was backed by a very large investment bank, not a local VC. They also agreed to leave it open so other providers could compete.I don’t know why someone hasn’t asked the city about that yet. MSTAR’s proposal should be public record I would think. Just ask the city to see their proposal. Makes it sound like the mayor was set on selling it to Broadweave from the very beginning. You have to wonder what his personal agenda really was or is???
May 17th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
That would be very interesting, and relevant, information. The city’s line is that they can’t reveal any other offers because of confidentiality requested by the private entities proposing the other offers.
May 18th, 2008 at 1:18 am
Mike:
I agree with your answer to my “free Market” statement, but you contradict your own statements. Your idea of free markets in this instance still doesn’t come in to play, once again because the government is not just steering the market and allowing it to grow on it’s own in a free market. Governments help grow the market by getting out of the way, but enforcing laws that protect the free market. In this instance it is exactly the opposite, and they are failing, no big surprise.
May 18th, 2008 at 1:30 am
“Your idea of free markets in this instance still doesn’t come in to play, once again because the government is not just steering the market and allowing it to grow on it’s own in a free market. Governments help grow the market by getting out of the way, but enforcing laws that protect the free market.”
Well you’re right in that I’m advocating for half of the network to be completely private, and the other half not completely. (Or at least if it’s private, then regulated). There is no reason for government to get involved in providing the actual service, be it TV, phone, Internet or whatever. The infrastructure, however, is a different story. But I’m not even saying that it has to be run by the government either, I just want to make sure that an infrastructure that is in place will have the benefit of retail provider competition. This model is successful today with Qwest and other baby bells around the nation. The government requires Qwest’s copper infrastructure to be open to competition and it has done wonders for broadband and retail service options in this country.
Under the new deal, Broadweave wouldn’t allow any competition. I’m fine with Broadweave buying the network if the government requires them to keep their network open, but that’s not part of the proposal. Broadweave loves the idea of having a monopoly. Qwest is also trying to get rid of the requirement to allow competition even on their copper. As far as I see it, competition on telecom infrastructure has shown it can be a success and we must resist efforts that will allow the erosion of that competition and open network philosophy.
May 18th, 2008 at 1:38 am
A real world example of where upload speed really matters: “ Surgical Robot Removes Calgary Woman’s Brain Tumor. Doctors controlled a surgical robot using a video-game like interface to remove a brain tumor. Now add high speed Internet WITH DECENT UPLOAD and you could have an expert doctor from Boston perform a surgury you need here in Utah.
May 18th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Mike,
In your last post you say that a High Upload speed would allow a doctor in Boston to perform surgery on a patient here in Utah. Well I beg to disagree. This would in fact be download related.
May 18th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Luke: Someone’s gotta have the upload speed to fill up that download pipe, right?
May 18th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Luke to add to Mikes upload. There are other applications that are closer to home. If you think upload doesn’t matter talk to someone who used Picasa Web or Flickr. Try uploading 512Meg from your flash card. You are going to be waiting a while on your Comcast connection. Qwest DSL is a little better but still more services could be improved with greater upload.
Then as someone who takes an online class from one of the local universities. Sure most documents that they need to upload are only MS Word files. But art classes will have very large files. Also language classes online use a tool called Wimba to do recordings locally and upload them to the professor to listen to. Prior to this tool the professors had the students call a phone number and essentially leave a message.
On the note of small businesses. Sure most use download only. Until they move to multiple offices or have a business that requires upload. Sure you can get T1’s from Qwest for $400-500/month if you are in a good location (downtown). If you are in an out lying area be prepared to pay a pretty penny for install and monthly service. These businesses are usually fine forking out some amount of money. But multiple T1’s can be prohibitive for these small businesses with 2 offices they want connected. Thus then slowing expansion of new tech in these companies.
I help a small business who wanted to setup online backup of their data. We use a service that uses deltas for its backups. But the initial backup over the Comcast workplace took 4 days to complete. Since then its better but still the upload limits the tech they can use like this.
If anyone here needs some help imagining why homes/businesses need big broadband don’t worry Educause did the work.
Big Broadband article from Educause
May 18th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
My other Educause link go cut off.
Educause whitepaper Blue Print for Big Broadband
May 19th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
There are some very interesting timing issues with this deal. We understand that the sale has been in the works for at least 6 months and maybe closer to a year. During that time, a job search for a a Director of iProvo was done. Nobody was hired despite qualified candidates being interviewed, why? An RFP was put out for additional providers on the network, many were interested and ready, including Xmission. That decision was continually postponed until the sale was announced, why?
Broadweave admits they have been planning for this for at least 6 months, but they have yet to provide a clear plan for what and how they are going to accomplish this “turn-around”. They keep telling us they will not release any specific information until after the city council votes on the sale, why?
Seems to me iProvo management has purposely kept the network from showing any improvement to make the sale look good.
It also seems that Broadweave does not want to announce any specifics until after the vote, are they afraid of telling the council what they really plan to do?
May 19th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
On the upload/download thing:
There are also very legal, legitimate P2P applications like Joost, Skype, and often Bittorrent. I can’t tell you how happy I was to be able to pull down the latest openSuSE distribution via bittorrent on iProvo.
You can’t say we don’t need the upstream bandwidth because there are no applications for it. The past has proven that as bandwidth is increased exciting new applications become possible. I’m sure that applies to upstream bandwidth as well as downstream bandwidth.
The reason we don’t have lots of good uses for good upstream bandwidth on the retail side is because we don’t have good upstream bandwidth on the retail side.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
the wingers comment on bad video is false,
the problem with the video product is the Amino 120 set top boxes, not provo’s head end.
the problem with voip on provo mstar is the fact that mstar won’t upgrade the code on the boxes inside the home so as to improve it.
That is also the reason the voice mail dial toe won’t work as well.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I agree, the problem with video is the set top boxes. I have iProvo’s video and the set top box is not as capable as previous boxes I’ve had from Comcast and Dish Network. I don’t have problems with the video itself. At least, none that I’ve noticed, which is the same thing.
May 21st, 2008 at 2:06 pm
“the wingers comment on bad video is false”
To me, the video being awful is based on what I see on the TV. I believe Jarrod on his video. But, if what I see at Wingers is IProvo’s version of HDTV, I stand by my statement. Whether it’s the STB or the feed itself.
“the problem with voip on provo mstar is the fact that mstar won’t upgrade the code on the boxes inside the home so as to improve it.”
Aren’t the “boxes inside the home” the WWP’s? Which are owned by Provo City? Or do they have their own IAD’s? Is that MSTAR’s responsibility to upgrade them? Or IProvo’s?
So i am taking from these two statements that the issues on the IProvo network are the edge devices, not the network itself? Maybe I’m reading to into this. But, how much money does it cost to replace all the STBS with new “better” STBS, then “upgrade the WWP’s? Seems like maybe that would be a drop in the bucket compared to what the Provo Taxpayers have already put into IProvo. Maybe Provo City should just keep the network and fix it…?
May 21st, 2008 at 2:31 pm
“Maybe Provo City should just keep the network and fix it…?”
That would certainly be my preferred solution. CCG and Franklin Court made a lot of good suggestions to the city if they can take the political heat (which Mayor Billings seems unwilling/unable to do).
These same providers (MSTAR and Veracity/Nuvont) on UTOPIA experience a collective churn under 0.5%, a rate that most telecom companies can’t approach. I don’t think the providers are to blame for many of iProvo’s issues.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:00 pm
I wonder if this is a sign of what future service will be for iProvo customers. It looks like the service at Traverse Mountain may have been changed recently to 10/5 instead of 5/1. I’m wondering if they are planning to have the same offerings at both iProvo and Traverse Mountain.
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