Lieutenant Governor Spencer Cox, as part of his campaign for governor, recently challenged Utahns to send him their best big ideas, something audacious with impact across generations. Anyone who knows me knows where I’m going immediately. For years, I’ve harped on there being no real broadband plan in Utah. The… Continue reading
Man, it’s been a long time since I’ve had to write about the Utah Taxpayers Association. Once Royce Van Tassell left for greener pastures, the UTA was pretty quiet about all things UTOPIA. In fact, I understand that the last time UTA and UTOPIA sat down UTA left frustrated that… Continue reading
It’s pretty incredible that even now newspapers can’t get stories about UTOPIA right. The Daily Herald penned a recent op-ed that managed to skip or mangle so many facts that it’s no small wonder they came to the erroneous conclusions that they did. I have to take some time to… Continue reading
Reading about how bad rural broadband can be is one thing. Experiencing it is another. Living in Cedar City for three years and spending a lot of it exploring Southern Utah from here to Delta to Moab to Mexican Hat has made it painfully obvious how awful the situation is… Continue reading
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m starting to tire of waiting for the cities who opted into Milestone 2 of the proposal from Macquarie to finally act. After missing the original August deadline to complete the report, there’s been almost dead silence. Nobody seems to want to talk about it,… Continue reading
The Utah Broadband Project recently released the Utah Broadband Plan, the culmination of almost five years of work paid for by a federal grant. This builds upon the Utah Broadband Map and a report on broadband adoption within the state. The report has four main objectives: Strengthen and Grow Existing… Continue reading
In all of the city council discussions over the Macquarie deal, the conversation has been dominated by the potential cost of the utility fee. Even with the extremely high probability of generating enough revenue to cover the utility fee and reduce the bond payment, it’s all about what how much money… Continue reading
The Macquarie deal is really good. I have doubts that UTOPIA cities are going to get a better offer at all, and the odds that any other offer would even have a chance of paying any of the existing bond debt are very slim. That said, there are things that all… Continue reading
A pretty common accusation I’ve seen lately is that Macquarie is looking to lock up UTOPIA cities in a contract to make a guaranteed buck. After seeing fly-by-night operators like Broadweave and the almost comically underqualified attempts by FirstDigital (let’s not even get into HomeNet), I can’t blame someone for… Continue reading
As if the hyperbolic uNOpia site wasn’t light enough on facts, the Utah Taxpayers Association also commissioned a report that repeats many of the same mistakes. Apparently the hope is that by repeating the same lie over and over, it’ll end up being true. In this case, it appears that… Continue reading