Free UTOPIA!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

UTOPIA Executive Director Todd Marriott has announced the formation of the UTOPIA Citizens Advisory Network (U-CAN) to help provide feedback from the public on the direction UTOPIA is going. Jesse Harris, a local activist who runs FreeUTOPIA.org, has been selected to chair the new group. Harris has spent significant time and effort following developments related to UTOPIA since September of 2006. “Our goal is to help spread the word about UTOPIA and provide ideas on how the network can improve,” he said. He continued: “I’m very excited to bring the community of municipal telecommunications supporters together so that we can help make this network succeed.”

U-CAN plans to hold its first meeting on Saturday June 28 from noon until 1:30PM at the Ruth Vine Tyler Library, 8041 S Wood Street in Midvale. A representative from UTOPIA will be on hand to answer questions from meeting attendees. Regular monthly meetings will be scheduled across the Wasatch Front to give residents of all member cities an equal chance to participate.

About UTOPIA: UTOPIA is a consortium of 16 Utah cities that provides a next-generation fiber optic network for providers of telecommunications services and provides some of the fastest Internet speeds in the nation. It promotes a competitive marketplace by allowing smaller private companies to lease the network and provide services to residents within its service area and is open to allowing new providers and services on the network.

About Jesse Harris: Mr. Harris is an IT professional from White City Township and activist for municipal fiber optic networks. He has been blogging about municipal fiber optic projects and telecommunications at FreeUTOPIA.org since September of 2006. He is a recognized authority on municipal telecommunications projects in Utah and has been interviewed about UTOPIA and iProvo by the Salt Lake Tribune, Deseret News, Salt Lake City Weekly and Daily Herald. 

I sent the following letter to members of Provo's Municipal Council on June 2, 2008.

Greetings Members of the Council;

I apologize for the last-minute nature of this communication. I've been waiting to collect as much information as possible before I e-mail you important information on why Broadweave is the wrong company to sell iProvo to.

Certainly basic honesty seems to be an issue with Broadweave. As of May 15, they have neglected to obtain business licenses in any municipality where they do business. Washington City has considered referring the matter to enforcement. (See: http://www.freeutopia.org/2008/05/15/broadweave-lacks-proper-business-licenses-corporation-filings/) They also have repeatedly misrepresented their company's age, claiming to have existed since 1999, yet nothing shows that the company existed prior to 2003. In an interview today, Steve Christensen, Broadweave's CEO, is now claiming the company has been around since 2003. Why the lie? (See: http://www.freeutopia.org/2008/05/16/broadweave-did-not-exist-prior-to-2003-website-claims-first-contract-in-1999/
and http://www.freeutopia.org/2008/06/02/broadweave-doubletalks-iprovo-on-couchcast/) They have also talked up the importance of equipment ownership and the poor value of open networks while failing to practice what they preach. (See: http://www.freeutopia.org/2008/05/19/broadweaves-double-talk-on-open-networks/ and http://www.freeutopia.org/2008/05/20/broadweaves-double-talk-on-equipment-ownership/) It is even rumored that they have tax liens filed against them by the state for failure to pay their withholding taxes for November and December of 2007. (See: http://www.freeutopia.org/2008/05/16/evaluating-the-iprovo-asset-purchase-agreement/#comment-4887) Can you really trust a company that shows so many signs of being untrustworthy?

This says nothing of their expansion plans either. The Eagle Broadband network they have purchased in Houston was a seriously distressed asset. In order to make it usable, they need to build a NOC, negotiation franchise agreements and transport rights and replace some vital missing equipment. They also need to overcome a negative consumer perception. At the time that OEN, the previous network operator, went out of business, there were 1500 customers, all of whom lost their service with zero notice. That kind of poor experience means they will be plowing millions upon millions into a network with a strongly negative customer perception. This says nothing of their attempt to pursue developments in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and California, pursuits that will require even more money that they do not have.

So what of their technical experience? While Veracity brings in a lot of smart guys, Broadweave itself has zero experience delivering video in Traverse Mountain and has fewer than 30 video customers in Sienna Hills, a subdivision sitting in one of the areas hardest-hit by the subprime mortgage meltdown. Integrating the Veracity team, one that offers very limited video experience, will take months and result in major system hiccups. They will also have to attempt to integrate city employees from the NOC, many of whom are highly opposed to the transaction and have negative opinions of their soon-to-be co-workers. Replacing these highly-skilled employees will be very expensive and have a strong negative impact on network operations, especially in Utah's tight labor market.

The option you are presented with is a terrible one, to spend 19 years financing the operations of a dishonest company with big dreams and small execution that plans to acquire a basket full of technical and HR problems. I urge you in the strongest possible terms to reject this rent-to-own arrangement and find some other way to resolve the problems behind iProvo.

If you have any additional questions, I would be more than happy to answer them and would request that this letter be entered in as part of the public record on behalf of proponents of open municipal fiber optic networks.

–
Jesse Harris
(801) 937-4471

http://www.coolestfamilyever.com/
http://www.freeutopia.org/

This opinion piece was published in today's Daily Herald.

As an advocate for open-access municipal fiber optic networks, I was disappointed to learn that Provo planned to sell iProvo, the nation's largest such network, to a private entity who planned to become the sole retailer. This disappointment quickly turned to disgust and outrage as more details of this secretly-brokered deal surfaced. After attending several of the public meetings and doing some research, I am convinced that the city of Provo is about to embark on the "SS HomeNet" for a second time.

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PacketFront is looking for UTOPIA supporters both in member and non-member cities to organize some peer-to-peer marketing efforts and spread information about UTOPIA via word-of-mouth. Please e-mail Chris Hogan, VP of Marketing at PacketFront, at Chris.Hogan@packetfront.com if you're willing to help spread the network in member cities and get your city to join. I already know of a few small groups in Sandy, West Jordan, Taylorsville and Salt Lake City who are eager to join and the word on the street is that Cedar City has considered switching to pledging status sometime soon to speed construction.

Given the well-funded opposition to UTOPIA from Qwest, Comcast and the Utah Taxpayers Association, it's absolutely critical that we show up in force at future city council meetings and do everything we can to raise awareness and get others to sign up for service. Ten of the eleven pledging cities have decided to "double down" and give UTOPIA a second chance; it's up to us to help prove that this increased risk wasn't for nothing.

I've now sent e-mails to all candidates for Governor, State Senate and State House, though a surprising number of candidates either did not submit an e-mail address or submitted an e-mail address that's invalid! I'm planning on sending out snail-mail versions of the surveys to these candidates, but if you have an e-mail address for any of them (listed below), I'd appreciate being spared the cost of a stamp. After all, I'm doing all of this out-of-pocket.

As a side note, a few candidates have already submitted responses but they have been slow in coming thus far. You can read what I've gotten on the wiki.

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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 out which candidates are good for broadband in The Beehive State.

Needless to say, it's a lot of work to pull all this together. It took me about an hour to build both pages and setup the e-mails for that relatively small group of candidates. Where I could really use some help is in building pages for the various candidates for county executive and legislative offices. If you've got some spare time (and a registered account), why not head on over to the Candidate Positions page and add in whatever you can? I sure would appreciate the help.

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 which candidates are UTOPIA-friendly and which ones are not.

On March 7, the candidate registration period for state and county offices opened up. It'll close on March 17. At that point, I'm going to send the following list of questions to each candidate and post their responses on the wiki.

1. Do you generally support or oppose projects like UTOPIA and iProvo?
2. What is the basis for your support or opposition?
3. Is your support or opposition based on the general concept or specific implementations used in UTOPIA and/or iProvo?
4. What is your position on the regulation of incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) such as Qwest?
5. What is your position on the regulation of incumbent cable companies such as Comcast?
6. What role, if any, should the state play in allegations of unfair business practices leveled at incumbent carriers such as Qwest and Comcast?
7. What proposals or concepts do you support to bring better broadband access to rurals Utahns?
8. What proposals or concepts do you support to improve average broadband speeds to be better competitive on an international basis?
9. What proposals or concepts do you support to increase competitive options for Internet, television and telephone services?
10. Do you have any other related comments you would like to add?

Each time I receive a response from a candidate, I'll post it on the wiki with a link from a post on the main page. As part of this, I'm also going to include some background information on each question to provide some neutral basis for the question. You'll be able to track all candidate positions from the wiki. Naturally, anyone that can contribute more information (such as offices up for grabs, candidates who are running, their voting history if they've held office before, etc.) would be very helpful.

I wrote the following letter to all members of the Government Competition and Privatization Subcommittee to express my disapproval at the proposals brought forth at their last meeting. (more…)

I'm just starting on my journey to get the legislature to hear about the restrictions on UTOPIA, but there is already good progress. I've submitted some brief comments as a synopsis of why we need UTOPIA and why it is critical for us to expand it to unincorporated areas. Below are the comments I have submitted for the co-chairs of the Utah Technology Commission to review.

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I've decided to step things up a notch and really get the ball rolling on changing the state law prohibiting counties from participating in UTOPIA. Yesterday, I got a notice that the Utah Technology Commission will be meeting on October 19th at 8AM. This seemed like the proper venue to air my concerns about the current law, so I shot off an e-mail to the chair of the Commission, Rep. John Dougall.

I promptly got a reply back from him guiding me to the right person to talk to, so I'm seeing if I can't get a spot on the agenda of the next meeting (which, as I understand it, should be November 15th) so that I can make a short presentation. I'm crossing my fingers that I'll get a chance to do so.