Category Archives: News

News articles about UTOPIA from around the country and around the world.

Putting the Watchdog on a Leash

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It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of the Utah “Taxpayers” Association. Their frequent stretching of the truth and cowardly dodges of criticism sometimes make my blood boil. Apparently I’m not alone. A reader pointed out a new blog, Stop UTA, that’s going to be a watchdog on their activities and point out their lies and hypocrisy. I’m looking forward to more voices taking them on.

Layton Mayor Curtis Takes Aim at the UTA

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Apparently I’m not the only one sick of the Utah “Taxpayers” Association and their constant vuvuzela-like drone. Layton Mayor Steve Curtis is getting sick of their spiel too.

Mayor Steve Curtis said UTOPIA, and the cities involved in it, have been transparent. “There isn’t anything we are doing behind closed doors,” he said.

The association has been opposed to UTOPIA from the beginning, Curtis said. “And if there is a way and means to stir the public, they go about it,” he said.

Curtis said he also disagrees with the association’s assumption that the public pledges being made available to the project are on the rise.

This is the kind of elected official needed in UTOPIA cities, just like Mayor Winder of West Valley City. It’s about time that the cities started sticking up for themselves and their decisions against the telecom guns-for-hire representing themselves as some kind of public advocate. You’re on notice, UTA: we’re all pretty sick of your lies.

Special Note: The UTA is still a bunch of cowards. They never responded to my challenge to a debate and refuse to respond on their Twitter account. Royce Van Tassell will also abandon any discussion thread on FaceBook about UTOPIA once I jump on. What a bunch of wusses.

An iProvo Update

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Veracity Networks was kind enough to invite me down to their offices to see what they’ve been working on and chew the fat about broadband in Utah. (In the interest of full disclosure, they bought me a tasty but inexpensive lunch from Lon’s Cookin’ Shack. Appreciated, but not enough to buy any influence.) I’ve seen a lot of improvements down there and I feel a lot better about the direction the network is headed in.

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Catching Up

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Yes, I’ve been very quiet around here for the last few weeks despite some news happening regarding UTOPIA. The short version is that I spent two weeks in Boston getting hand surgery for my infant son plus a considerable amount of time getting prepped for that trip. (On a side note, Southwest rocks for still allowing two checked bags at no extra charge.) As passionate as I am about broadband policy, family pretty much trumps it all. So now I’m digging through about a month of e-mail, getting back in the habit of reading my feeds (I had to declare Google Reader bankruptcy, so I’m sure I’ve missed more than a few things), and getting back on my feet from being on the other side of the country. (If anyone wants to come mow my lawn, I won’t refuse.) This doesn’t mean I’ve been totally out-of-the-loop, just that I’m aware of the major happenings and not much else.

So UTOPIA picked up an award from the Broadband Properties Summit for getting things back on track. Good on them. This is positive recognition that management is getting the ship sailing in the right direction, even if there are treacherous seas still left to navigate. I’m not surprised that they had to ask the cities to float them some operating capital for a while, nor do I think any of them were caught unaware. The unexpected nature of the refinance two years ago I think had more effect on the cities’ anger than being asked for money. I’m also not surprised that, again, the UTA was spouting off the same nonsense they always do. It’s fatiguing to see them trotting out the same failed and rebutted arguments every single year, blind to any kind of reality of the situation.

I’d like to give a special shout out to Mayor Mike Winder of West Valley by showing some real leadership on UTOPIA. As part of the city council, he was consistent in voting against UTOPIA. Now he sees that the decision has been made, the financial commitments already made can’t be erased, and they need to make the best of the situation. No, UTOPIA is hardly in any kind of ideal situation. They can’t cover operating expenses right now, much less the bond payments. It kind of sucks for someone like me who’s such a big supporter. I think now is the time to ignore the commentary and just do the work. The people who hate UTOPIA will always hate UTOPIA and at this point, and nothing I say or do will change their minds. Heck, UTOPIA could deliver every pie-in-the-sky promise out there while making the cities run tax-free and someone (probably Howard Stephenson) would still find something to kvetch about. It’s not worth the effort to reason with or attempt to disprove people like that.

With the short runway for this month, I’m going to skip May’s podcast. If you’ve been sending me e-mail, I’ll get back to you soon. If you’ve noticed a lot of downtime with the site (and I have), I’m working on moving to another host because I just don’t have the time or will to manage a VPS setup anymore. I’m not going anywhere, nor am I giving up the fight. I just needed a break for a while.

After much searching, Qwest finds the right shade of lipstick for the pig

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In quite the surprise announcement today, Qwest announced that its efforts to dress the company up for sale over the last decade have finally paid off. CenturyLink, the result of a merger between ILECs CenturyTel and Embarq, is buying the company in an all-stock transaction. This comes not even a year after the merger that created CenturyLink, one in which CenturyTel purchased Embarq.

What remains to be seen is if this will improve Qwest’s long-ailing fortunes and legendary reputation for horrible customer service. I used to be a customer of Sprint Local in Las Vegas before it was spun off into Embarq and was always impressed with the service quality. The only reason I discontinued service was because Vonage was offering a very compelling feature set at a  more attractive price. I don’t know how much of Embarq has rubbed off on CenturyTel (or even what CenturyTel’s reputation is), but any amount of it would help.

That said, I wonder if the new company will have the billions of dollars required to update badly-neglected infrastructure. It’s no secret that Qwest carries a very heavy debt load and hasn’t exactly been speedy with the rollout of ADSL2+ services. They also have no wireless or video revenues to cross-subsidize construction… and neither does CenturyLink. As land lines continue to death spiral and cable turns up the DOCSIS 3.0 heat, I’m left wondering how the new company will fare too much better than the old one.

Good luck, guys. You need as much of it as you can get.

The Non-Story of UTOPIA and Lawsuits

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Today’s Deseret News ran an article about UTOPIA’s preparation for some pending litigation, but it’s not really much in the way of news. We all know that UTOPIA and RUS aren’t on each other’s Christmas card lists and that UTOPIA incurred some significant expenses as a result of the incompetence of that federal agency. Negotiations with RUS broke down months ago and UTOPIA was still left holding the bag. At this point, they really don’t have much of a choice but to go after RUS in court since a settlement could not be reached and the damages are in the tens of millions.

UTOPIA obviously can’t confirm nor deny anything at this point, but it’s not hard to read between the lines. The question, though, is why this is being cast in some kind of sneaky and sinister light. Only an idiot would openly discuss pending litigation in a public meeting, much less with members of the press. It’s also not uncommon to have internal agency meetings that don’t require public notice. I would bet that every city, county, state agency, and interlocal agency has done the same.

That said, I can understand why someone would be heavily suspicious. UTOPIA has always struggled with putting information out for public scrutiny. It isn’t helped when the incumbent guns-for-hire Utah “Taxpayers” Association regularly takes what information is public and distorts or outright fabricates negative information about the project.

Basically, there’s nothing to see here that you haven’t already heard through the grapevine. When there’s real news, they’ll probably put out a press release.

Connected Lyfe, Hangman, and the UTOPIA Headend

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There’s been a whirlwind of speculation since last night when a press release came out announcing that Connected Lyfe, one of UTOPIA’s newer providers, was being acquired by a then-unknown company called Hangman Productions. This wasn’t helped when an 8-K filing with the SEC came to light that showed Connected Lyfe as the purchaser of UTOPIA’s new video headend. It was pretty easy to assume the worst that the white-label video product would end and it might be a small step towards selling the network. After doing some digging and talking to both Todd Marriott and Chris Hogan at UTOPIA, it looks like that’s not the case at all. In fact, this is probably a really good thing all around.

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Isom Eliminated at Convention

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I’ve received word that Eric Isom, Qwest’s top lobbyist, has been eliminated at the Davis County Republican Convention and will not be on the ballot in this year’s election. This is good news as he would no doubt use the seat to push for anti-UTOPIA legislation. Still, always keep your eyes open for his continued lobbying efforts.

Press Release: UTOPIA cities gearing up for growth

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WEST VALLEY CITY— The eleven pledging cities of the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA; http://www.utopianet.org) are currently discussing options for the next stage of the network’s growth. After a string of successes since June of 2008, the open-access, fiber-to-the-premise network is strategizing on how to reach more homes and businesses sooner.

“In less than two years – since we retained the new management team – the network has added about 50% as many new subscribers as the network had gained since 2002, grown from three service providers to 12, and we’ve deployed fiber throughout Tremonton and Brigham City, and in portions of Layton and West Valley City,” says the UTOPIA board chair, Kane Loader of Midvale City. “The UTOPIA model is working, but we need to maintain this growth in customers.”

The new plan anticipates adding about 20,000 more customers over the next several years. “We’ve known for a long time that UTOPIA needs a much larger customer base, and a good mix of business and residential customers, to make the books balance,” says Murray Mayor Dan Snarr. “Our cities are already obligated to the network for years to come, so we need to grow to critical mass rapidly, based on a plan to ensure long-term financial health.”

“YouTube alone uses as much bandwidth as the entire World Wide Web did in 2000,” points out Layton Mayor Steve Curtis. “Bandwidth needs in the near future will be enormous, as Google recently acknowledged. We want to make sure our residents and businesses are thriving, and in a world with an increasingly digital economy, a clear factor will be access to the near-unlimited bandwidth of fiber to the premise. UTOPIA is needed by our communities more than ever.”

“A recent New York Times article stated that, without a commitment to open access, affordability for higher bandwidth is only going to get worse. We need to keep growing this fiber network to support local businesses and the private sector,” insists Orem Mayor Jerry Washburn. “Governments build roads, and allow FedEx and UPS to compete on them. Governments build airports, and allow Delta and Southwest to compete at them. It makes sense for us to build a fiber network, and allow any interested service provider to compete on it, which currently includes XMission, Telesphere, Voonami, Connected Lyfe, Brigham.net, and more.”

Under this next phase of growth, the eleven pledging cities would create a new bond and release funds incrementally as demand is demonstrated. Officials from Brigham City, Centerville, Layton, Lindon, Midvale, Murray, Orem, Perry, Payson, Tremonton and West Valley are working together with UTOPIA staff to finalize the funding plan.

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Contacts:

UTOPIA – Elizabeth Vincent, 801.613.3837, evincent@utopianet.org

    • Kane Loader, UTOPIA Board Chair, 801.567.7206