Author Archives: Jesse

UTOPIA to Use Special Assessment Areas to Extend Reach

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UTOPIA has been holding a series of open houses in Brigham City and revealed a new tool in their toolbox for extended their reach: the Special Assessment Area (SAA). The short of it is if you can get around 35% of your neighbors to opt into an SAA, a bond will be created for the cost of deploying UTOPIA to that area and each participant will get an equal portion of the cost of deployment attached to their property tax assessment. This allows you to pay for the cost of installation over a long period of time (20 years or longer) while taking advantage of municipal bond rates, typically around 6-7%.

While this was originally conceived as a way to quickly extend UTOPIA further into member cities without waiting for revenues to do so, it can also be used by non-member cities and unincorporated areas to bring in UTOPIA. I don’t know about you, but I plan to start asking my neighbors if they want in on that.

UTOPIA Video Coming Soon; Prime Time Scrambling to do STB Replacements

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Good news out of UTOPIA: the video product will be ready to launch as early as next week. Service providers will reportedly have a list of prices and channel lineups by Saturday in preparation for reselling to customers. I don’t have a list of the channel line-up, but I would bet it’s going to be competitive with both cable and satellite providers. Now that MSTAR/Prime Time won’t be the only video game in town, you’ll be free to grab triple-play any way you want it.

Speaking of Prime Time, the word on the street is that they’ve been rushing to upgrade all of the MSTAR STBs ahead of being cut off from Broadweave’s headend on May 1. With just two days left, sources tell me that some customers may experience a loss of service since there’s been so little time to do the swap. My understanding is that Prime Time is going to use their headend out of St. George rather than use UTOPIA’s new MPEG-4 headend. Have some patience with them.

Why Cable Fears The Internet

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If you’re a content distributor, odds are that you and the Internet aren’t really on speaking terms these days. The recording, movie, and publishing industries all blame it for sagging sales, declining revenues, and shuttering up operations, even in cases where it just isn’t so. (I’m looking at you, Hollywood.) The problem is that most of them fear what they don’t understand. For cable, though, they understand perfectly what the Internet is. That’s why they’re so terrified of it.

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Is Broadweave Charging Big Install Fees?

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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.

Broadweave: No Cash for New Subs, Reserve Will Still Be Used for Bond Payments

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The Daily Herald quotes Broadweave’s acting CEO David Moon as saying that Broadweave doesn’t have the capital to agressively sign up new customers right now. The money required to hook up hundreds of new customers each month just isn’t there and they plan to continue making bond payments from the reserve fund for the next eight to ten months. This move will end up spending over half of the reserve fund on the bond payments and, unless replenished, puts Provo in danger of picking up the pieces should Broadweave default on any payments when it runs out.

I’m having a tough time figuring out how Broadweave can’t make rent. The price increases of around $5 per month per service would have been enough to break even under city ownership, but Broadweave is also taking in all of the retail revenues. Where is all of the money going? And just how short is Broadweave on making those bond payments with its own money? I’m guessing very far out based on how long they intend to keep on using the reserve fund. Broadweave was given what should have been a slam-dunk sweetheart deal and they’ve somehow managed to bungle it all up. Good luck filling the CEO slot, guys.

Provo Gets Black Eye Over Sale of iProvo

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The Society of Professional Journalists gave Provo an award, but not the kind they would want to get. The city received the 2009 Black Hole Award for repeatedly refusing to provide documents concerning the sale of iProvo to reporters from the Salt Lake Tribune. The failure to provide documents prevented newspapers and citizens from being able to review the terms of the sale prior to a vote by the city council. As I’ve repeatedly said, the failure to allow everyday citizens to review the full terms of the sale and the conditions under which it was negotiated combined with the rush for a quick vote was highly suspect. I suppose we all know that now with the multiple bond payments that have been made from a line of credit designed to protect the city should Broadweave fail.

BREAKING: Nuvont Selling iProvo Customers to Broadweave

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A solid source tells me that Nuvont is selling their iProvo customers to Broadweave effective today. Nuvont will retain its VoIP and Internet customers on UTOPIA and remain a service provider there. This isn’t much of a surprise given that Broadweave would likely not negotiate an extension of existing contracts. Nuvont has reportedly already moved many of the video customers to satellite, so Broadweave will be gaining mainly single-play and double-play customers.

BREAKING: Broadweave CEO Steve Christensen to Step Down as CEO, Leave Company Today

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Inside sources confirm the rumor from a month ago: Steve Christensen will leave his position as CEO of Broadweave and will not longer be a part of the company effective today. After months of relying on the line-of-credit to make the bond payment and facing an increasingly hostile HOA in Traverse Mountain, investors at EsNet are rumored to be taking over operations and exerting much greater control over the company to protect their investment. I say it’s about time.

This change in leadership can only be a good thing. Steve always struck me as a used car salesman in a better suit, all too willing to believe his own inflated hype. In contrast, I hear the guys from EsNet are very savvy and know how to run a business. Maybe this ship can finally be turned around.

UTOPIA in Perry: "Real Soon Now" Becomes July

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Forum commenter ALinPerry reports receiving a notice with his utility bill that UTOPIA will be going door-to-door in Perry next month to gauge interest in getting service. If interest is high enough, UTOPIA will finish the west side of town and add new subscribers as early as July. If you’ve been waiting for UTOPIA in Perry, keeps your eyes open for their reps.