Warren Woodward, director of broadband services at XMission, got an opinion piece published in the Tribune that helps set the record straight on their one-sided article and op-ed lambasting UTOPIA. Take some time to go check it out.
Setting the Record Straight: XMission Corrects the Tribune
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I was hoping you would catch this 😀
Several of us had penned a response and posted on SLUGG (Salt Lake Linux User Group). There has been a great deal of discussion and debate about Utopia there these last few days. We’re approaching about 100 posts over the last few days I think 🙂
Anyway, Warren has been awesome in helping answer questions and resolve any issues.
I’m hoping this article helps bring things into perspective. I also hope it helps bring more people into the Utopia camp. It can bring amazing opportunities to any city.
I’ve already spoken with the Mayors of Midvale and Murray and it’s really exciting to see what Utopia is doing for their cities.
BTW, I won’t be able to attend the Jan 8th meeting Unfortunately. My wife is very ill so I’m spending as much time as I can in helping her get well.
I’ll be thinking of you guys and good luck. I hope Sandy is the next city to join Utopia!
Regards
In his opinion piece Woodward writes, “UTOPIA is not in direct competition with existing telecommunication providers, not any more than the Salt Lake International Airport is in competition with Delta or Southwest.” This analogy falls a little short. Municipal investment in telecom certainly does bring economic development benefits similar to airport and highway investment. But Delta and Southwest never had to bear the burden of investing in their own airport facilities while Qwest and Comcast have made enormous investments in their own outside plant (subsidized, sort of, yes). They both can choose to sell services on the UTOPIA network, but for obvious reasons they will not. This dynamic – which simply cannot exist in the airport analogy – does in fact put UTOPIA service providers (not UTOPIA) in direct competition with the incumbents, as they should be. In the interest of full disclosure I work in the municipal FTTP field and I hope for the success of UTOPIA and the service providers utilizing it, but there have been obvious shortcomings not the least of which has been marketing and advertising. I’m optimistic PacketFront can, if allowed, make the necessary corrections.