Author Archives: Jesse

The Final iProvo Sale Documents

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Thanks to the power of GRAMA requests, I’ve obtained all of the final documents related to the sale of iProvo to Broadweave. If you want to take a look at them for yourself, you can download them here (14.2MB ZIP). Be warned that this ZIP file contains 48 separate PDF files, so this is only for the highly curious and those needing to be put to sleep. If you find anything particularly interesting while browsing through them, do let us know in the comments.

Perry City Council to get UTOPIA Update on October 20

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I got a note from a reader that the Perry City Council is expecting to receive an update from UTOPIA on their progress in the city during the city council meeting on October 20th at 7PM. If you’re looking for information on when UTOPIA will be available in Perry, you should make you’re at this meeting.

h/t: Al, the reader who let me know about this

U-CAN Report: September 2008

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The name of the game is frustration. Residents in Brigham City are eager to see UTOPIA get deployed, but they’re a bit sour on the Real Soon Now(TM) deployment date, one they’ve heard and seen missed before. Many aren’t going to wait around forever, instead going for cable modem, DSL and even wireless or cellular connections to sate their high-speed cravings. Some have even gone so far as to use ISDN to move away from dial-up connections.

The problem is the uncertainty. Without certainty of a specific date and location of deployment, residents are willing to sign lengthy contracts with existing providers instead of holding out for UTOPIA service sometime in the future. I’m personally confident that Brigham and neighboring Perry will see the first homes and businesses lit by year’s end. That means little to residents that want to support UTOPIA but feel as if they have been left in the dark for far too long. There’s also still lingering questions on what the install fees will be, if any. Qwest and Comcast hammered UTOPIA on the possibility and that leaves residents spooked.

Still, it’s encouraging to see that residents are supportive of UTOPIA and are eager to see it come to town. What it will take now is walking the walk, hooking up services to subscribers, in order to win over the city.

The Story Behind the iProvo Portals

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A lot has been made of the issues with phone service on iProvo and the blame laid at the feet of World Wide Packets (now owned by Ciena). After getting a techincal overview of what’s going on with the devices, it appears that the blame is well-placed. As promised, earlier, here’s the explanation as to why the WWP portals are a big bucket of fail and how UTOPIA managed to dodge most of those issues.

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The Real Story Behind Veracity and Nuvont

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I had the chance to sit down with someone from Veracity yesterday to get a better understanding of what they do and how they do it. One of the things that came up that is the relationship between Veracity and Nuvont, a spin-off company. I know I had a bit of confusion as to the relationship between the two entities. Now that I have the full story, it’s worth getting it out in the open to clear that air.

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UTOPIA's Potential for Hosted Services

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Last week, I had the opportunity to go visit TenX Networks to see what kind of network devices they build and how this could apply to UTOPIA. (Disclosure: they bought me lunch, but nothing fancy.) Their basic premise is to build network appliances using off-the-shelf Linux software to keep costs low while providing a high level of functionality. In short, they have an office full of really cool toys. I got a demonstration of their media server appliance powered by Ubuntu and MythTV (with what appeared to be a lot of useful hacks). We also talked about a SMB appliance that was a router, Asterisk PBX and CRM server all in one. I was impressed with how smoothly the media center performed and when coupled with the high bandwidth UTOPIA offers, there is significant opportunity for new hosted services.

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U-CAN Meetings for September

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U-CAN Meetings will be held this month in Brigham City and West Valley City. Due to the lengthy travel time involved in getting up to Brigham City, no meetings will be held this month in Utah or Davis Counties. The meeting in Brigham City will be held at the Brigham City Carnegie Library at 26 E Forest St and the West Valley meeting will be held at the Hunter Library at 4740 W 4100 S. As usual, all are encouraged to attend (even the resident mole from Frontier Communications).

UPDATE: In my haste to publish, I forgot to mention dates and times. WVC is on the 25th at 7PM and Brigham City is on the 27th at noon.

FTTH Coming Soon to Manti, Ephraim, Sterling

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It’s not just cash-rich incumbent telcos (read: Verizon) that can get in on the FTTH action. Broadband Properties Magazine reported in the August/September issue that Manti Tele Communications Company is replacing its copper with a brand-new FTTH network designed to devlier faster Internet speeds as well as IPTV. The company’s website (which looks like it was designed in 1997, the year the company was formed) is light on details, but I’m hopeful that this is a big step forward for these rural communities.