For years, the Utah Taxpayers Association has been concern trolling over UTOPIA, conveniently avoiding any kind of real confrontation or public forum where they can be called on it. They censor or remove comments from their website that don’t support their position, they whip the press into a frenzy with… Continue reading
A critical component of convincing Google that their fiber optic build should be located in the Beehive State is participation not just from you and me, but also from elected officials. While it will be obvious that you should contact your city council members and mayor, have you also considered… Continue reading
The following letter to the editor was submitted to the Salt Lake Tribune, Deseret News, Daily Herald, Ogden Standard-Examiner, and Davis County Clipper. It was published in the Clipper and an abbreviated version is currently slated to appear in the Tribune. UPDATE: Here’s the letter published in the Tribune. Whenever… Continue reading
Geoff Daily recently took BTOP out to the woodshed over its glacial pace, poor oversight, and severe underfunding. Today, I got some personal confirmation that BTOP is likely entirely broken and won’t accomplish much, at least not on this first round. Way back on September 17, I sent the following… Continue reading
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… Continue reading
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… Continue reading
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… Continue reading
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 [email protected] if you're willing to help spread the network in member cities and get your… Continue reading
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… Continue reading
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… Continue reading