UTOPIA (Finally) Launches New Website

After many months of waiting, UTOPIA has launched a new website (warning: sound and Flash ahead). It also includes a form for you to submit contact information to UTOPIA to check for service in your area and express your interest in signing up when it becomes available, apparently they hired a business web design firm that help with all the problems the old site had.  It also lists FuzeCore and Fibernet as providers (in addition to XMission, Veracity and Nuvont), but Mstar is still absent from the list. None of the providers on the website are shown as providing video, definitely a cause for some concern. The site is also lacking any kind of newsletter sign-up or RSS feed for updates. Still, this is a marked improvement over the presumed-dead static site that had been up for years.

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13 Responses to UTOPIA (Finally) Launches New Website

  1. Capt. Video says:

    No listing of Mstar as a service provider.

    No listing of any service provider offering video!

    Two of the four residential service providers do data only.

    I like the new web site but it’s little more than putting lipstick on a pig.

  2. Mike Taylor says:

    The website may be better in some ways, but in others, there’s actually less information than the old site. There are no statistics about how much of the networks are complete in each city. There’s no statistics on how much is aerial and how much is buried.

    There are no statistics about just how many residents are to be served in each city and roughly how many are being served currently.

    There are no milestones and no estimates of when it will be available in given areas.

    I understand the desire for the executive team to keep things under wraps for competition purposes, but I’m coming to Captain Video’s point of view that we, by the end of the year, need to see that some definite goals have been set, and plans on how they will be met.

  3. Capt. Video says:

    I’m guessing hell will freeze over long before UTOPIA providers measurable goals and regular measurement of progress toward those goals.

  4. Capt. Video says:

    I would like to make clear that my reference to “lipstick on a pig” goes to the financial situation UTOPIA is in and in no way references the service which I highly recommend.

  5. Tom says:

    Cannot see what each SP does at a glance, have to link to each one.

    Major suckage. Lets make it HARDER for you to find what you want.

    Oh and love that the business section has benefits.. Residential doesn’t. So if your residential, no real benefit to UTOPIA. So you should not use them because eh.

    More points to UTOPIA’s focus on business vs residential?

    Oh on the Business section.. Symetrical 10 Gbps connection so a 20 Gbps connection?
    Wow just Wow. (do not believe it)

  6. Jesse says:

    Full duplex 10Gb Ethernet is very much a reality. Many large telcoms are deploying 40Gb connections throughout their backbone.

  7. Capt. Video says:

    By eliminating the chart showing what service each service proivder offers you sort of hide the fact that UTOPIA is not offering video?

    I thought they over stated their situation somewhat. While 20GB and faster speeds and bandwidth are possible, they are not currently available? Much like the “shared” aspects of the network.

    While each home has a 100mb/sec. connection to the home, is the backbone currently configured to support that? I know iProvo was NOT. That would require a GB or each 10 homes on the network. The 7000 residential subscribers would need what 700 GB of bandwidth is each one actually had 100Mb?

    All networks and all ISP’s over subscriber their bandwidth and share bandwidth. Cable networks AND UTOPIA. They make is sound like cable companies over subscriber bandwidth and UTOPIA provider don’t?

    I am not a data guy, am I wrong about that?

    The question here is not what many large telecoms have deployed, but what has UTOPIA deployed? Not what can it deploy, but what has it deployed?

    Does UTOPIA have 10Gb optics and equipment deployed in the backbone everywhere? Faster or slower?

  8. Capt. Video says:

    The web site has the same incorrect information some ads have had.

    “The only network in Utah that brings fiber right to your home, and lets you choose your service provider.”

    The iProvo/Broadweave network brings fiber right into your home AND lets you choose your service provider.

    Just amazing that UTOPIA could get this wrong!

  9. Jesse says:

    I don’t think that UTOPIA currently has 10Gb equipment deployed anywhere other than on the backbone, but it could very well setup a 10Gb link between two sites with some equipment swaps. Of course, they’d probably have to upgrade the backbone to 40Gb equipment to keep it from being saturated and the only places that have those kinds of bandwidth requirements are universities (who are already served by UEN). It would have been a peach of a deal for UTOPIA to get in on that.

    Given that the press releases had incorrect information as well, I am unfortunately unsurprised. I’m also a little underwhelmed that it took so many months to put together. Grabbing an off-the-shelf CMS like Joomla or WordPress would have been much faster (and probably cheaper) even with a custom theme.

  10. Tom says:

    Isn’t the service map out of date too.

    I thought a few cities signed up as non-pledging cities. Do not see them on there. Could be wrong.

    Appears this is the old original map from the DC days.

    Also I was mistaken on the 20Gb equipment. I can see how UTOPIA could get it up and running. Would not be a standard setup but possible.

  11. Jesse says:

    The map is definitely outdated. Both Vineyard and Washington City joined as non-pledging.

  12. wraptur says:

    Fuzecore’s website says video/vod info to come.
    http://fuzecore.com/content/internet-fiber/#videohdtvvod

  13. Jonathan says:

    A little DWDM and you get 10Gbit per wavelength. So it just depends on the equipment you put on the end at that point. The Qwest Geomax product mentioned below specs out at 640Gbit so 64 wavelengths.

    DWDM an easy explanation of DWDM equipment would be a device with 65 optical ports. 1 port for the multiplexed signal and 64 optical ports for input signal. Signal in signal out on the other side on a similar device. What gets plugged into the 64 ports is dependent on your current needs. It could be 10GigE which is what it would be in Utopia’s case if I understand their setup. Could be SoNET in a telco’s case.

    UEN was mentioned I don’t know what their requirements usually are when RFP’s are put out. But I do know they currently employ Qwest Geomax which just gives them essentially dark fiber. Qwest just uses DWDM to mulitplex/demultiplex and output it on the other end. If I remember reading the last notes on their site correctly XO provides a few links. I believe there is a Comcast (not cable but their enterprise offering) connection in there. Its the only way to get physical diverse paths into Cache valley. Qwest only goes through the canyon from Brigham City. While Comcast went over the mountain from Tremonton.

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