Fri 11 Jul 2008
Forum poster luminous has pointed out on the forums that UTOPIA has posted a new RFP to start construction again by August. This falls in line with the expectations set with city councils in April and May to waste no time in getting things rolling again. It's definitely good news that the project is meeting it's goals so far at this early stage of reorganization. If things keep up this way, residents of RUS cities will see service by this fall.
July 12th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
The spelling nazi said 2.1.5 had the word Utopia spelled wrong
Oh and It’s about flippen time they continue the building. I’ve had a lot of people tell me that Utopia was dead. Pretty hard to be dead if you are building out
July 12th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Another sign that Packet Front is on the way out. DC/PF should be running this if they were still in the game.
Are they around? Did everyone jump ship to UTOPIA and PF leave Utah?
July 14th, 2008 at 12:28 am
Jesse: Single biggest mistake Utopia made was contracting with DC/PF?? Hard to recover from a major partnership that blew threw 100 mil+? Don’t care how many iProvo engineers, or what type of directors you hire. Are the salaries of the newly hired employees public record, being that this is a government funded operation? Betcha money that they paid a pretty penny to attract the talent they need to run and maintain this thing. Tick Tock, Tick Tock. Two years and counting before the refinance of that bond is due. What are the particulars behind the restructuring of the bond that Utopia sold the cities on? Refinance, give us two years and we will be profitable, and will start paying on the refinanced bond? What is the total due per month on this deal? Anyone? Has anyone run the numbers?
Jesse, you seem to be publicly known leading expert on this stuff. Give us some visibility into some of the financial commitments that are being made, and need to be kept in order for this ship to keep floating. It is all public record. Would you go the extra mile for your readers and break it down?
July 14th, 2008 at 12:39 am
Jesse: Single biggest mistake Utopia made was contracting with DC/PF?? Hard to recover from a major partnership that blew threw 100 mil+? Don’t care how many iProvo engineers, or what type of directors you hire. Are the salaries of the newly hired employees public record, being that this is a government funded operation? Betcha money that they paid a pretty penny to attract the talent the need to run and maintain this thing. Tick Tock, Tick Tock. Two years and counting before the refinance of that bond is due. What are the particulars behind the restructuring of the bond that Utopia sold the cities on? Refinance, give us two years and we will be profitable, and will start paying on the refinanced bond? What is the total due per month on this deal? Anyone? Has anyone run the numbers?
Jesse, you seem to be publicly known leading expert on this stuff. Give us some visibility into some of the financial commitments that are being made, and need to be kept in order for this ship to keep floating. It is all public record. Would you go the extra mile for your readers and break it down?
July 14th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Sorry, I double posted. Mozilla was not showing my post. I jumped in with IE and it showed my posts.
July 14th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Snack: No problem on the double post. It seems most Gecko-based browsers (Mozilla, Firefox, etc.) have some issues with caching from time to time.
We actually had a discussion on the forum about the financial aspects of what’s going on. I’ve got an e-mail into Chris Hogan to find out the particulars on those questions. It’s very important that we know exactly what milestones we need to hit in order to keep the network going.
July 14th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Just talked to someone from UTOPIA and the numbers look better than we thought. Go check out the forum post for some more details: http://www.freeutopia.org/bbpress/topic/utopias-new-marketing-plan-if-they-build-it-will-they-come?replies=15#post-40
They’re planning to release some more financial data for public review within the next month or two.
July 14th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
I think their aggressive build start up is wonderful.
With the clock ticking, every day is an opportunity to sign up more customers, and more customers, taking more services, generating more money is exactly what they need.
July 14th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Yes then in 5 years I might get my city to sign up.
August 11th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Are they still on schedule to start construction this month? I seem to remember the RFP suggesting they would award the RFP that closed on July 25th on Aug. 1st?
Has it been awarded? To what company? How many responses did they receive? From what companies?
Only 20 days (15 work days?) to get the construction machine rolling to meet the goal of starting up in Aug.
August 13th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
I hear that it’s still on-track for this month and that they have a construction manager now to select the winning bid.
August 28th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Are we still on track to have construction start in Aug.?
If so that would mean it’s already started or starting tomorrow?
Has there been any announcement if UTOPIA has even selected an RFP winner for the 2 RFP’s they issues on construction and splicing?
August 28th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
I have no idea. They did post a bunch of new RPFs recently, but I haven’t heard what the final disposition of the existing ones is.