iProvo might still be some time away from breaking even, or so says the "we'll print anything negative about iProvo" Deseret News. According to the article, a miscalculation places the break-even point with current projections as far away as 2012. The original calculation failed to take into account repayment of funds borrowed from the city's electric department. In the meantime, iProvo plans to increase revenues more quickly by adding one or more additional service providers, marketing more aggressively to individual homes and businesses and exploring new services such as security monitoring and teleconferencing.
Personally, I think they need to bump wholesale rates up slightly for some of the services, especially the Internet service, to reach a break-even point faster. Even paying $45/mo for 15Mbps is a steal at just $3 per megabit and that's still lower pricing than what Qwest or Comcast can offer for the closest comparable service. It'd also pump an extra $600K per year into the project just from higher Internet fees. Tack a few dollars each onto the phone and television and the project could be paying off debt early, lowering rates as the revenues increase.
Whatever they do, they need to start erasing the red ink more quickly. All the bad press is going to soften the resolve of the city in holding onto the network.
(See full article here. And remember, it's the Deseret News: they hate iProvo.)
