Tag Archives: UTOPIA

Re-writing Reality: Utah Taxpayers Association Spins on iProvo

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It’s almost become too easy to pick on the Utah Taxpayers Association when they get a story so very, very wrong. The latest work of fiction is thacceir tortured stance on iProvo, one in which they perform twists of logic to support how things have unfolded with iProvo and yet continue to vilify what UTOPIA does. As usual, this requires a point-by-point breakdown of where they lack any kind of consistency and twist or invent facts to support their weak sauce arguments.

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Despite speed bumps, Comcast just can’t compete with UTOPIA

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Comcast is still trying desperately to stay in the high-speed game, but they just can’t quite seem to pull it off. Their fastest tiers are now 105M/10M and 50M/10M, but with more than a few caveats. Both are $100/mo, but the faster tier requires that you subscribe to at least one other service, and the price is only for 12 months. After that, it skyrockets to $130/mo for the next year and an unspecified price thereafter. So how do UTOPIA providers compare?

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Further UTOPIA Installation Details

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I just spoke with someone who’s considering getting UTOPIA installed in Orem (yes, the salespeople are apparently out in force) and got some details about what to expect on install costs under the UIA model. The cost of installation is $3,000 which is available to both new and current subscribers. If you pay up-front, you get a $250 discount and it will drop the monthly cost somewhere in the $25 range. There are also options to finance the install over either a 10-year or 20-year period. The 10-year period requires $300 up-front and about $30 per month whereas the 20-year period is no up-front cost and around $25 per month.

The real trick with the install costs is to do a quick run-down of what you’ll be paying in the long term. Assuming a savings of $25 per month, the up-front payment for installation will pay itself back in just over nine years. Under all plans, the cost of installation will eventually go away, but Qwest and Comcast will still be charging you for that “free” installation. Odds are pretty good you’ll be subscribed to Internet service for the next two decades (and if you don’t think you will be, why are you reading this?) and there are multiple choices for service if for some reason one of the providers cheese you off, so I don’t think there should be a lot of concern about not using the infrastructure you paid for.

If you live in a UTOPIA member city and want service, make it easy on the sales guys and let them know ahead of time that you’re interested.

How To Bring UTOPIA To Your City, the UIA Way

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I had previously written about how to get UTOPIA where you live, but a lot has changed in the model since then. While the old model required you to convince the city to get on the hook for a significant chunk of change, the UIA model alleviates a lot of the risk. Many of the steps are the same, but the particulars are slightly different.

  • Put together a strong proposal to make your case. Make a brief 5 to 10 minute presentation that explains how the UIA works (see post here) and why joining would be beneficial, then summarize those remarks in a 3-4 paragraph letter. Brevity is key, so stick to the main points and be prepared for questions. It’s better to have your arguments together first and then find someone to present them to. Don’t know where to start? I’m happy to help.
  • Get organized. There’s strength in numbers, so make sure you start finding other people who want UTOPIA, especially in a concentrated area like a neighborhood or particular block. You’ll also want to get business owners and leaders on board since they often carry a disproportionate amount of weight in city government. If you want to lead an effort in your city, I’m happy to setup a subdomain (i.e. yourcity.freeutopia.org) for you to post on. You may also want to consider setting up a Facebook group or an email list (which I can also host).
  • Identify city council members who would be interested. Look for those with a background in technology, research, real estate, or property management as Pyramis Company. They’ve likely had to work with sending or receiving large amounts of data that took forever to finish or can best understand why UTOPIA matters. Make contact with those most likely to support membership in UTOPIA before presenting to the city council as a whole. Don’t forget the try the mayor’s office while you’re at it.
  • Ask for an agenda item at your next city council meeting. Believe it or not, you too can speak to the city council about whatever you want. Find out who’s in charge of city council agenda items in your city and ask them if you can do a presentation on UTOPIA. More often than not, you can get about 5-10 minutes to speak. I’ve managed to get a slot at a legislative committee hearing, so it’s not that big of a deal. Some cities hear about it so much that they limit any discussion on the matter. West Jordan, for example, will only have UTOPIA as an agenda item once a year. Find out when the last time was and try to plan appropriately.
  • Be ready for an intense Q&A session. The city council will hammer you with financial questions. Make sure you’ve prepared to explain that the UIA assesses all costs of network construction to those who sign up for service, that the city will need to issue a bond for the money, and that no money is released until there is enough demand in a compact area to cover all costs of the bond plus some of the shared network costs. A city may also need to conduct a feasibility study on their dime to determine if sufficient demand exists. Above all, don’t be afraid to defer questions to a UTOPIA representative if you don’t know the specifics. Some Q&A sessions can last a half hour or longer depending on the council.
  • Plan for follow-up presentations. Cities don’t jump into these things based on a single presentation no matter how slick it might be. Plan for future city council meetings as representatives from UTOPIA, Qwest/CenturyLink, Comcast, and the Utah Taxpayers Association may be invited. Make good use of the public comment periods and make sure as many supporters as possible do so as well.
  • Above all, thank the council for their time. They’re pretty busy folks who are sacrificing as much time as you are to hear what you have to say. You’re also asking them to put some money (and their future election prospects) on the line. They need to know what you appreciate their hard work and sacrifice.

Still getting stuck? Feel free to e-mail me for help. I’m glad to put together and even conduct presentations to help spread UTOPIA as far as possible. I can also put you in touch with some representatives at UTOPIA who are happy to give your council members a tour of the facilities and provide their own presentations.

Exclusive: Payson Not Showing at UTOPIA Board Meetings

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For quite some time now, Payson has seemed to be afflicted with a huge case of buyer’s remorse about UTOPIA. Back in 2008, they opted to not participate in the new round of bonding and later punted on joining the UIA. (Who knows if they’ll even come up with the matching funds to participate in the federal stimulus either.) The biggest shocker, though, comes from a review of UTOPIA board minutes. A review of these shows that Payson’s UTOPIA board member hasn’t been showing up to many of the meetings, even when one was held in Payson at what I can imagine was great inconvenience to the members of the other cities.

My review of the minutes shows that in 2009, Payson did not attend nine of the monthly board meetings. In 2010, eight meetings were missed. Neither of the 2011 board meetings with available minutes show that Payson was in attendance, and I’m willing to bet that the others that I don’t have minutes for would show a similar pattern. Making it to just five meetings in over two years is abysmal, especially when there’s the option to participate via phone.

Given the large amount of stranded investment in the city and Payson’s large financial commitments to the network, this seems like a total abdication of their responsibility to city taxpayers. Shouldn’t they be making an effort to get the network covering both operational costs and debt service? Wouldn’t it be prudent to set aside money for participating in the UIA, money that is guaranteed to be paid back by subscribers and utilize infrastructure already in the ground? Why would Payson do an ostrich impersonation in the face of the harsh fiscal realities?

If I were a resident of Payson, I’d be out for blood. Contact Councilman Brad Daley and let him know that if he’s going to be on the board, he has a responsibility to show up to meetings and do the people’s work, especially since he voted for UTOPIA in the first place. If he won’t do it, it’s time to pressure Mayor Rick Moore to find someone who will.

UTOPIA’s Five-Year Plan

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I had the chance to visit with Gary Jones, UTOPIA’s new sales and marketing guy, Julie Paulson, the new PR flack, and Kirt Sudweeks, the CFO, to get some updates on how things are going to be playing out this building season. I got a pretty good rundown of where they’re going, and I think the plan is good enough to work.

The network currently has about 9,000 subscribers out of 56,000 marketable addresses. The plan calls for adding on 5,000 new subscribers each of the next five years. Under the UIA model, this would cover all operating expenses of the new subscribers and the operating expenses of the existing subscribers while potentially providing a small offset of the current pledges (though significant offsets aren’t scheduled until 2015). Existing subscribers will be given the chance to participate in the UIA model, either to buy their connection outright or finance it over 20 years, either of which will eliminate the built-in network construction costs from the old model. This would also provide a significant influx of cash to UTOPIA to help with construction. There’s also a lot going into identifying potential subscribers in areas with the network in the ground that aren’t currently signed up.

Those of you living in cities that chose to participate in the UIA will be able to sign up under the new model, but the ability of UTOPIA to build depends on group participation and proximity to existing network. If you’re next to one of the anchor institutions being wired with stimulus money, it’ll be easier to hook you up. That, in turn, makes adjacent neighborhoods easier to hook up, and so on. If you live in a small pocket without service available, talk to your neighbors and get that interest registered on UTOPIA’s website.

Now allow me to inject some reality in here. I think UTOPIA’s plan is doable. Adding 5,000 new subscribers a year, if split between new construction and existing areas, would run under 10% marketshare per year. UTOPIA can conceivably hit 35-40% of the markets they serve as iProvo did. If you’re like me and want UTOPIA to succeed and really REALLY want to get service, you’d better be prepared to work. I keep on saying it, but it bears repeating: you’re in the driver’s seat. Don’t sit back and wait for service to come to you, be the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

If the expansion is citizen-driven and UTOPIA properly executes on the plan (which has been a sore point before), it’ll only be a few years before there’s money to pay the bonds. I have better confidence this time around because unlike Brigham City, the money is already approved and waiting for construction. (Seriously, getting the bonds passed and figuring out what to do in the areas with lower take rates cost at lest 3-4 months.) Now get out there and do your part to make this thing work.

Confirmed: Infowest to Provide Residential Service

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I’ve had it confirmed that Infowest, currently a commercial provider, will be participating on UTOPIA as a residential provider as part of the new UIA expansion push. Given that Prime Time, Connected Lyfe, and Fuzecore have all had to bow out for one reason or another, it’s good to know that there will be more options for residential customers who join the network in the future. I’m pretty sure they’ll offer voice and data, but no word on video options.

If you have any experience with Infowest, leave it in the comments.

Connected Lyfe, Disconnected

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Word on the street is that the plug is being pulled on Connected Lyfe (or Lyfe Communications, or whatever company name they go by now). Several sources have confirmed that the video head end they purchased from UTOPIA has been returned as they are no longer able to make the payments. I’ve also heard that, unsurprisingly, most of their difficultly came from an inability to negotiate needed video licenses from programmers to roll out their ambitious video product.

I can’t say I’m too surprised. Technologically speaking, they had all the right ingredients. Most of the guys who founded Connected Lyfe had been working for Move Networks, a company that made some impressive video streaming products that could dynamically adjust the video bitrate depending on current bandwidth conditions without a bunch of annoying buffering. Where they went wrong, however, was thinking that programmers would line up to stream their shows to any and all screens they could support. I mean, the networks literally own Hulu and even they can’t get too disruptive. Combined with the rapid burn of investor cash, I couldn’t see this one going much of anywhere.

I hear, though, that UTOPIA is working on some stringent new requirements for new providers so that these kinds of things start happening. I understand they’ve been in the works for a few months and still aren’t finalized, but hopefully we’ve seen an end of shining star new providers that flame out.

UTOPIA Sued: Is there really a story here?

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The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Chris Hogan, one of UTOPIA’s former execs, has filed a suit against the agency over violations of his employment contract. The suit alleges that consulting firm TetraTech was awarded an improper contract for network construction because Executive Director Todd Marriott’s brother is a manger there. The suit also alleges that Hogan’s replacement, Gary Jones, is Marriott’s neighbor. Now I’ve got friends on both sides of this, so this is where I tread very, very lightly.

I can’t speak to Mr. Jones’ qualifications, but I do know that UTOPIA has done plenty of business with TetraTech in the past. They are also a very large multi-national corporation with offices across the world, including two here in Salt Lake County. Even with the blood relationship between the Marriotts, I don’t see that this would necessarily disqualify TetraTech from being a candidate, especially if the work they did in the past was up-to-par.

UTOPIA has also told me that Hogan’s contract was up for renewal and they opted to not renew it. Obviously, I don’t have any details beyond that, but the timing does seem to coincide with my recollection of when he was brought on. Assuming an annual contract, the timing would likely fit.

The Tribune, however, doesn’t dive into any of this background to provide essential context here. I also noticed that they did not include any statements from UTOPIA to provide balance to the story, though I imagine with pending litigation, they can’t really say too much anyway. This is the far too common behavior I’ve come to expect from Utah’s major media outlets when it comes to UTOPIA. They present very one-sided stories and practically cheerlead for UTOPIA’s failure from the editorial pages. There are two sides to every story, but outlets like the Tribune and Deseret “News” are only concerned with the doom-and-gloom side that moves papers.

UTOPIA Starts Construction Season

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After many, many months of inaction, UTOPIA is finally starting to move some more fiber into the ground starting with Centerville. This is the start of wiring up anchor institutions using the federal broadband grants, money that should touch most member cities. It won’t get the fiber all the way to your house, but it will wire schools, hospitals, libraries, and other government buildings which will make hooking up neighborhoods much easier and cheaper.

So what do you need to do to get service when it rolls by near you? Go to UTOPIA’s website and register your interest. They will be using those registrations to identify places to market to. If your city is part of the UIA, you’ll be able to get the install cost rolled into your monthly fees. If your city is not part of the UIA or is not a UTOPIA member city, you need to go talk to your city council to get that fixed.