Free UTOPIA!

Part of the biggest problem with UTOPIA advocacy is a lack of coordinating basic information. To that end, I've setup a new wiki to track information about UTOPIA including the positions of legislators, which cities are considering service and, for the 2008 election cycle, where candidates stand on municipal broadband and other telecommunications issues.

Anyone can participate and add their knowledge. User registration and admin approval will be required before you can contribute in order to prevent spam and defacing. Why not go ahead and register an account so you can help build it up?

Details are sketchy, but I've been made aware that there's some kind of telecom summit this Monday where iProvo will be one of the items discussed. It's going to be from 3PM to 6PM at the Covey Center for the Arts in Provo. I understand that Provo City Councilman George Stewart will be in attendance. Thought I'd pass this along just in case it turns out to be something interesting.

As a side note (and totally unrelated), there's an election underway for the new Bloghive Advisory Board and I got nominated. If you know some of the other bloggers on the list and want to cast a ballot, I'd encourage you to do so (and, hey, vote for me while you're at it).

Since launching the website, I've been using the Subscribe2 plugin to manage sending updates via e-mail to those of you not so big on RSS. Unfortunately, the plugin has been getting a bit buggy lately. For instance, yesterday it sent out three copies of the e-mail. (I get them too, so I share your annoyance.) I've also gotten at least one report that it won't properly process unsubscribe requests and AOL seems to think that any message coming from here is junk mail.

Given these problems and the great results I've gotten with my feeds, I've decided to switch to using FeedBurner's e-mail notification service. The old notification service is still in place and will remain there for about a week to give everyone a chance to make the switch. Make sure you remove yourself from the Subscribe2 list before adding yourself to the new FeedBurner list to avoid duplicate messages. Use the form below to manage your subscription.

Before I left town for a jaunt to DC, Venice and Florence, I had a few questions posed to me by Rep. Steve Urquhart of St. George on my summary of the November 7 subcommittee hearing. It seems he has some concerns over the financial viability of the project and some perceived cherry-picking activities in private subdivisions and non-pledging cities. Simply trying to fully respond in the comments would not fully answer the questions posed and I think it's important that both get the time and attention they deserve. Here are the questions he posed:

(1) Can UTOPIA make it financially or will taxpayer money be used to bail it out? (Its best-possible cost/subscriber rate is north of $5,000. Companies don’t live to tell what happens in that territory; bankruptcy courts tell the story for them).

(2) Has UTOPIA departed from its very reason for being — ubiquitous service? (Yes. It originally declared that it existed to serve areas that cherry pickers wouldn’t. Now, though — as you note — it is doing the exact same thing as Qwest (cherry picking)).

For starters, I really appreciate that Rep. Urquhart participates so readily in open discussions. It helps move the political process forward and puts a human face on legislators who are often reduced to a handful of quotes in the major papers. Without that, we sometimes have a tendency to read too far between the lines and create caricatures of the people we should be working with instead of against.

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I'm going on vacation to Italy by way of Washington, DC and will not be posting until I get back on the 17th. I'll have limited access to e-mail (read: none) and zero cell phone coverage, so I'll get back to you when I return.

Ciao, everyone. 

Taking a cue from a commenter's suggestion, I've setup a discussion forum for the site built on phpBB. It's still a work in progress, but you're welcome to start posting and registering accounts. Since I'm still working on it, it might go up and down periodically as I implement changes. To cut down on forum spam, I've already added support for Akismet and plan on adding httpBL support Real Soon Now™.

Why don't you go check it out? Leave any questions or suggestions there or in the comments.

It seems that part of the biggest problem with advocating for UTOPIA is that supporters don't really know each other. Most of the people I've met who are enthusiastic about UTOPIA have been contacts through this site and at various government meetings, though I'm sure that just scratches the surface. Just today, I stumbled across Woods Cross UTOPIA, a site supporting UTOPIA in Woods Cross. (They also have a handy, dandy list of which council members are in favor of joining.) I managed to find the Pro-UTOPIA mailing list by total accident when a message got cross-posted to Pete Ashdown's UT Politech list. While I appreciate happy accidents, we really need a better way of finding each other.

It's also hard to keep on top of meetings that concern UTOPIA. I usually find out that a city has been considering membership long after they've held public hearings and starting taking down the votes. The legislative subcommittee responsible for UTOPIA-related legislation changes every year (both name and membership). Mainstream news sources often miss reporting on these matters until days after they've happened if at all. This is despite tracking several dozen RSS feeds and getting e-mail alerts from Google on a regular basis.

What I need is your help. If you know UTOPIA supporters, if you know about upcoming meetings concerning UTOPIA, if you know about a movement in your city to get UTOPIA, I want to know! Drop me an e-mail and I'm happy to help out in any way I can. I'll create and conduct presentations, I'll do a brain dump on the knowledge I have, I'll attend upcoming meetings and hearings. Qwest and Comcast each put on their own united front; it's time we do the same.

All of the feeds on the site have been updated to use FeedBurner now instead of the built-in WordPress feeds. This should resolve some feed compatibility issues that have popped up in the past. If you aren't getting updated items anymore, you might want to re-subscribe with your RSS reader using the new feed.

Being linked from Slashdot sends a lot of ripples in its wake. Frank over at Comcast Issue was recently mentioned in a story there and some of that success spilled over to here. Frank's been trying to get UTOPIA service out to West Jordan for along time with a renewed push after Comcast shut off his service unexpected for violating some unknown cap on usage. (You know, because "unlimited" doesn't really mean "unlimited".) What does that have to do with FreeUTOPIA? That linkage spilled over to here from an article Frank posted on the White City ComCo meeting he attended. An average of 80-something visits a day spiked to nearly 400 yesterday.

Congrats to Frank for shining the light on the dark recesses of Comcast's shady practices and getting some props.

Yesterday's Davis County Clipper ran an article about UTOPIA's installation delays, plugging FreeUTOPIA in the process. Where does the blame lie for slow installations? Look no further than the Rural Utility Service. Though the RUS approved a loan to UTOPIA for rural broadband development last fall, paperwork has kept the loan from closing in a timely manner. Once closed, however, it opens the door to deployments in Brigham City, Tremonton, Centerville and Payson, at a minimum.

While the delays can be frustrating, it's worth drastically lowering the cost of installation for member cities. That's probably a small consolation for residents in Murray, Midvale, Orem and West Valley City where construction has temporarily stopped to be able to leverage the federal dollars. The money from the RUS has an expiration date and can only be used on cities with a population under 20,000.

Roger Black, the COO for UTOPIA, says that areas where it's been installed are seeing a 21% take rate, slightly below initial projections but above the take rates needed to have UTOPIA run in the black. This good financial news is in stark contrast to the red ink projected to bleed from iProvo for the foreseeable future despite having a significantly higher take rate. The takeaway is that pooled risk is a Good Thing(TM), something that Provo and American Fork apparently didn't get the memo on.

The funniest thing I find about being mentioned in the Clipper is that I had no idea it was coming until I read the article. You'd think they would want to talk to the guy running a website they find useful.

(See full article here.)