A blog post showed up in my Google Alerts from a Provo resident who claims that Broadweave may be charging big-time install fees for customers not already wired to iProvo. Per the poster’s account, they called on behalf of a neighbor and was told that any home not already hooked up would be assessed a $600 install fee. A lot of people hammered on UTOPIA for their install fee trial balloon and they responded with low install fees (if any) and a slightly higher but still competitive monthly rate to compensate. Broadweave had better smart up and take a play from that book.
Is Broadweave Charging Big Install Fees?
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Here it comes… I can’t wait to hear the 101 reasons why this a good thing for Broadweave but not Utopia.
Oh yea, Broadweave will never be able to “smarten up”. They have nothing, nothing at all, to work with.
In the Daily Herald article that was posted about yesterday the CEO said they were charging the install fees specifically to discourage new customers. From the article:
I’m not at all saying this is a good thing. But they are certainly aware of the consequences.
WHO CARE’S……This site really should be called “the National Enquirer of UTOPIA”
My wife is starting to read this B.S she say’s it’s like these people have nothing better to do than gossip, are you sure they’re not women?
Bonner: If you don’t like it here, leave. Nobody is forcing you or your wife to come here and read the “gossip” and post sexist comments. As it turns out, the rumor Jesse posted about is true, and I, for one, am glad to know about it.
PS… Apostrophes: learn how to use them. They’re for possessives and contractions, never for plurals (care’s?) or 3rd person singular verbs (say’s?).
Bonner: The “gossip” you cite frequently ends up in the papers within days. Which, believe it or not, makes it news.
I don’t suppose that this problem of an expensive install has any application to the Utopia project…. Oh but they’re doing the same thing. I guess that is why Broadweave is discussed here. There are many applicable parallels. it’s not just gossip. It’s learning from other’s mistakes. Not to mention that the iProvo fiber to the home debacle is far from over.
If you haven’t seen this it is enlightening – http://cis471.blogspot.com/2009/04/why-is-connectivty-in-stockholm-so-much.html
No matter how you look at it, whether for UTOPIA or Broadweave…high install fees will result in significantly fewer installs.
It seemed to me that UTOPIA (or some on this blog) was believing people would pay it. That the product was so different or so worth it, that they could have high install fees and still gain customers needed to be successful.
Broadweave appears to believe the higher fees will significantly slow or stop installs and admit they are doing it due to capital problems. They were very upfront about that.
The higher install fees are not good for Broadweave or Provo residents.
I would suggest that the Swedish fiber situation is significantly different than here in the US, we already had a very well developed privately owned telecom infrastructure (cable and phone companies) while in Sweden that was not the case. Thus making is much easier for municipal builds. The difference being building fiber vs. OVER-building fiber.
Perhaps these well funded, politically powerful private companies stood to lose billions and did not want the government to build fiber networks they (and others) could use?