Author Archives: Jesse

Broadband Bytes for 2009-05-11

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Broadband Bytes for 2009-05-08

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Integra Telecom Now Listed as a UTOPIA Provider

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I was poking around UTOPIA’s website today and noticed that Integra Telecom is now listed as a commerical provider. This is an exciting development for UTOPIA as Integra measures its revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars and spans 11 states. Picking up a carrier-class provider of business services underscores the strength of UTOPIA’s network and could result in the migration of high-dollar accounts from large corporations. Good job on the pickup, guys!

Broadband Bytes for 2009-05-07

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The Need for Speed: UTOPIA's First 100Mbps Residential Customer Hooked Up in Layton

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Despite the hefty $147/mo price tag, someone in Layton has some serious bragging rights by becoming the first residential customer on UTOPIA to pick up 100Mbps service courtesey of FuzeCore. Nobody else in Utah offers those kinds of speeds in the home and UTOPIA plans to up the ante even further with planned 1Gbps service to residences (though I shudder to think how much it will cost). Can competitors Qwest and Comcast catch up? Survey says “not bloody likely”.

Broadband Bytes for 2009-05-06

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Prime Time Speaks on the STB Replacement

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I had a conversation today with Bryon Wentzlaff of Prime Time Communications and he answered a few questions on the STB replacement in progress. By his figures, about 1800 boxes were replaced leading up to the termination of signals from Broadweave that occurred on Sunday. That was all done in the last two weeks just after Prime Time inked the final deal to purchase MSTAR.

He also said there are still around 900 boxes left to replace, most in student housing. Part of the problem is that they didn’t have enough boxes to complete all of the replacements, but those are supposed to arrive in the Wasatch Front tomorrow morning and a team of 30 installers will be replacing them as fast as they can over the next two weeks. I know that’s small consolation to those of you looking at a blank screen after months (or years) of video issues with MSTAR, but have some patience with them. Replacing 2700 boxes in a month is no small feat.

A New Direction for Broadband Bytes

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Some of you have probably noticed that the Broadband Bytes feature hasn’t been appearing on the website since March 17. There’s two reasons for this: it takes a large chunk of my Saturday to put it together (thus why it was frequently published late) and I haven’t been getting paid for it. My personal financial situation now demands that more of my time be spent earning a living, so free time is at a premium. All the same, I run into stories worth sharing on a regular basis. So do Mike and Jonathan.

To that end, I setup a Twitter account, @FreeUTOPIA, to publish those articles as we find them. It’s going to be powered by Phil Windley’s code used by the most excellent @utahpolitics. If you’re not using Twitter, that’s okay; I’m going to setup the Twitter Tools plugin to publish those tweets on a daily basis. It should be ready to go by tomorrow.

If you have any questions, comments, or rude noises, sound off in the comments.

Bumps in the Road for the Prime Time Takeover of MSTAR?

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A forum poster on DSLReports isn’t too happy with Prime Time Communications. S/he reported had an STB swap last week that resulted in a loss of channels, frequent pixelation and/or tiling, and being downgraded from a dual-tuner DVR. They’re also reporting issues with out-of-sync audio and video with the new Aminet 530 STB. Given the rather hasty swap from the iProvo headend to the Prime Time one in St. George it’s not surprising to find a few bumps in the road but after years of MSTAR’s video issues, it’s very ill-timed.

Any readers out there with similar issues or pointers on how to fix it? Or, better yet, would someone from Prime Time like to reach out to give this guy a hand?