Coming Soon: The FreeUTOPIA Podcast

It’s time to take to the digital “airwaves” here at FreeUTOPIA. The other night, I decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to run a regular podcast to highlight service providers, talk about UTOPIA and discuss the state of telecommunictions in general. I’m working on lining up a guest for February and have one lined up for March.

When looking around for the best way to do it, I found that, of all things, TeamSpeak is a pretty darn good platform. The software is available for Windows, Mac and Linux, it supports recording and moderation, plus there’s a text chat feature. Listeners can ask questions in text chat or even be given temporary speaking privileges to ask questions just like a caller to a radio show.

If you have a show or guest idea (or would like to be a guest yourself), send me an e-mail or use the #freeutopia tag on Twitter.

Tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

6 Responses to Coming Soon: The FreeUTOPIA Podcast

  1. u235sentinel says:

    Great idea but one of the biggest problems I’ve been hearing is that people don’t seem to know what’s going on with Utopia. Having them open up a bit would go a long ways plus having some advertising is important.

    One of the biggest issues I’ve been hearing lately is people don’t seem to know anything about Utopia and what I have heard is usually through third parties.

    I’m concerned they will not be successfully unless they turn this trend around. Spend a few bucks and just get it done.

  2. Capt. Video says:

    I like your idea. But feel it will only be successful if there is a major sea change in the “cone of silence” that UTOPIA and the UTOPIA cities have been using.

    I’d love to hear from any UTOPIA city officials explaining why they keep their citizens in the dark as to what the UTOPIA goals are and how they are doing at reaching those goals.

    I’d love to hear UTOPIA provide real numbers, goals and their progress toward reaching those goals. Are they currently operating at cash flow positive? Do they have a budget that shows the number of subscribers they need to gain each month? How are they doing at reaching those goals.

    However, given that Todd Marriott has publicly stated that they purposely DON’T write down things like a business plan, so they won’t have to share them….I expect the first public numbers will come when the cities have to step up and make the bond payments. The amount they pay will have to be made public….only 21 months?

    It’s funny I can go on the web or to the annual stock holders report and see all sorts of numbers on companies like Qwest and Comcast, but can’t see anything like this for UTOPIA, when they are using public money.

    My Comcast annual report shows subscribers, subscribers by service, gains/losses, revenues, expenses, profit/loss, etc., etc. How could we allow UTOPIA, a company completely funded by municipalities to hide those same numbers from the citizens?

    I’d love to see you ask that of the elected officials that assist UTOPIA in hiding their numbers.

    (I accept that some numbers are business sensitive and should not be shared with the competition, but that is very specific set of numbers and would mostly be related to future specific location plans rather than general plans and past numbers.)

  3. Jesse says:

    I was thinking that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to bring in UTOPIA and city officials as guests. I’d like to know more about what’s going on as well. I get a fair number of e-mails from readers asking about UTOPIA since they apparently can’t get the information directly. (If you’re one of those people, I haven’t responded yet because I’m still trying to get the answer.) Maybe they wouldn’t mind participating to answer the questions themselves?

    I think Provo was a model for transparency in their numbers. Their reports provided a lot of insights into how the network was doing and where the potential areas of improvement were. UTOPIA should try and emulate that as best they can. A lack of transparency makes it seem like they have something to hide.

  4. Capt. Video says:

    As much as I would love to see the number personally….I do think the MOST IMPORTANT thing you can do is express how very important it is that people SUPPORT these networks (UTOPIA and Broadweave) by SIGNING UP FOR SERVICE.

    That message should be made a clear part of EVERY show.

    The success of these networks completely depends upon residents and businesses moving their services from Comcast and/or Qwest to UTOPIA or Broadweave!

    Move your services and move them NOW!!!

  5. Harold Bills says:

    Well Capt. I guess we will have to disagree again. I think people should buy the best service for the money they can afford. There is a free market contest out there to be won by the best performer. Should they be persuaded to buy Broadweave because the city screwwed-up? That would be the wrong reason to subscribe. There should be no free lunch for Broadweave. If they want to win they need to learn to compete. These Freeutopia podcasts owe Broadweave nothing unless they want to be a sponsor. Of course if they do offer outstanding service and they merit an honest reccommendation that would be reasonable. The same applies to Qwest, Dish or Comcast.

  6. Capt. Video says:

    We do disagree again.

    Let me make my position clear and you may not disagree as much as you think.

    If any company cannot provide competitive service, they should not get your service.

    But assuming that the service is similar (even if slightly worse), it would be better to support the company you have an ownership of or a investment type tie.

    If it’s going to cost me money if the company fails, I have a reason to support them. If they provide a reasonable service. Similar to the other services out there. They don’t have to be the BEST service.

    Given no financial tie to the companies, I would select the BEST. However if the companies are all able to provide a good service, acceptable service…I would support the one I have a financial investment in or tie to.

    In this case, Provo citizens have a financial tie to Broadweave. Should Broadweave fail, The networks loses, the money lost, will not come from Broadweave investors, but will come from Provo City and the pockets of the residents of Provo.

    A similar case exists for the citizens of UTOPIA cities. If UTOPIA fails, they are on the hook for over 1/2 a billion dollars. Even with UTOPIA not providing better phone or video service (I’ll gladly accept UTOPIA could be providing better data service.), but even without the best triple play….UTOPIA city residents should subscriber to that service.

    Residents of Provo or any UTOPIA city would be better to pay for the network by subscriber fees than by their taxes. If you buy the service, you are getting something for your money….if you pay via your taxes you likely get nothing but the bill.

    Since you seem to have a desire to “punish” the Mayor (and or city council) for selling the network. You would not support someone switching to Broadweave to get good service, even if it’s not the best service.

    It’s sort of like “shopping locally”. It really matters. When I visit my wife’s home town…a small town with only 1 gas station/store….I always buy my gas there and often a few other items.

    I can get the gas a dime or more cheaper elsewhere, the same for milk & bread, etc.

    But I always shop there when in town and encourage others in town to do the same. If we all shop elsewhere and save a few pennies…this place will close down and then when you need to fill up before you leave town or grab some milk…..they will have to drive 30-40 miles to make that purchase.

    Sometimes it’s actually in your best long term interest to pay a little more or get a little less in the short run.

    That is why I strongly support people signing up for UTOPIA or Broadweave/iProvo.

Leave a Reply to Capt. Video Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *