Archive for December, 2009
Monday, December 28th, 2009
UTA Threatening to Sue UTOPIA and Brigham City
Hot off of their misinformation campaign to residents, the Utah Taxpayers Association is now rattling their legal sabers at UTOPIA and Brigham City over the Special Assessment Area (SAA). The UTA is claiming that participants were deprived of due process because the terms were not explained properly and that there wasn’t a public hearing. These [...]
8 Comments » - Posted in Jeers, UTOPIA by Jesse
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
January 2010 Podcast is Scheduled
The next podcast will be on Friday, January 8 at 4PM MST. Our guest will be from Veracity Networks, the newly company formed after Veracity Communications and Broadweave Networks merged. We’ll be talking about iProvo and Veracity’s operations on UTOPIA. Join us by calling in, jumping in the show chat room, or contacting us on [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in Podcast by Jesse
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
Will the Comcast-NBC merger mean stepped-up anti-piracy efforts?
If regulators sign off on it, the nation’s largest cable company will end up with a significant foothold in both the broadcast media and movie industries. Overnight, a content distributor becomes a content producer. Pre-merger, Comcast had little incentive to play along with the copyright cop ambitions of the RIAA and MPAA. This merger could [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Essays by Jesse
Monday, December 14th, 2009
Some Thoughts on the Future of the SAA
Now that the SAA has been approved in Brigham City and construction can start, we can expect that the same model will be executed in other member cities to help build out the infrastructure. Even neighborhoods not in member cities could get in on the action if they were so inclined. Even with how successful [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in Essays, UTOPIA by Jesse
Saturday, December 12th, 2009
December 2009 Podcast
4 Comments » - Posted in Podcast by Jesse
Friday, December 11th, 2009
Articles on the Brigham City SAA Vote
The Salt Lake Tribune, Deseret News, and Standard-Examiner all have posted their articles on last night’s vote in Brigham City. According to the Trib, only about 70 of the over 1600 participants in the SAA opted to sign the UTA petition seeking to leave the SAA, a scant 4%. One of them admitted to not [...]
12 Comments » - Posted in News, UTOPIA by Jesse
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
BREAKING: Brigham City Approves UTOPIA SAA
Despite some recent controversy created by the UTA and saber-rattling by Qwest’s legal team, Brigham City has signed off on the UTOPIA SAA and cleared the way to start construction immediately. This will add 1,604 customers to the network and opens the way for additional customers to join the network at a later time. The [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Cheers, News, UTOPIA by Jesse
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Reminder: Podcast Tomorrow
Just a reminder that the return of the FreeUTOPIA Podcast is tomorrow at 4PM. Come listen in online and feel free to call in at (347) 838-8025. Our guest will be Bryon Wentzlaff of Prime Time Communications. Special thanks to Mike Graves of The Surfonics for permission to use one of his songs for the [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Podcast by Jesse
Saturday, December 5th, 2009
Brigham City Responds to UTA FUD
Brigham City has posted a thorough rebuttal (warning: PDF) of UTA’s false and misleading mailer sent to residents earlier this week. (h/t: Paul Larsen) It thoroughly shreds the UTA’s positions which are about the same as claiming that dihydrogen monoxide is a dangerous substance. Many of them are the same rebuttal points I offered, some [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in News, UTOPIA by Jesse
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009
Utah Taxpayers Association Uses Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt Ahead of Brigham City Vote
The City Council in Brigham City will be holding a final vote on the UTOPIA SAA on Thursday December 10 at 7PM. This vote will determine if the SAA will move forward or not. Ahead of this, the Utah Taxpayers Association has decided to start up a campaign of disinformation to try and get residents [...]
