Author Archives: Jesse

Next U-CAN Meeting: July 26 in Orem

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The next meeting of the UTOPIA Citizen’s Advisory Network (U-CAN) will be held on Saturday July 26th at noon in the Commission for Economic Development Office (CEDO) conference room at 777 S State St in Orem. As usual, anyone interested in getting more information about UTOPIA, getting updates on the progress of the network or helping UTOPIA succeed is welcome to join.

I’m also working on something a little less formal on Tuesday July 29th in the evening for Salt Lake County as an interim meeting. Announcements will be made as I firm up a location.

The Need for Speed: Comcast's Plans to Squeeze More Bandwidth From Aging Copper

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In the quest to prepare for DOCSIS 3.0 without undertaking the necessary step of replacing aging coax with fiber, Comcast has been playing around with several solutions designed to postpone the inevitable and squeeze more bandwidth from their copper turnip. The end result? Freeing up anywhere from 25% to 50% of their available bandwidth on the coax last mile.

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Sneak Peek: Broadweave's Company Blog

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Google Alerts turned up an interesting result today: a link to Broadweave's company blog. Obviously, they're still testing it out, so don't expect to find a whole lot on there. (Quick WordPress hint: go to Settings -> Privacy and turn off search engine indexing if you're not ready for it to be public.) About the only thing it has right now are a couple of test posts and some information on billing changes.

UTOPIA Construction to Start in August, Just as Planned

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Forum poster luminous has pointed out on the forums that UTOPIA has posted a new RFP to start construction again by August. This falls in line with the expectations set with city councils in April and May to waste no time in getting things rolling again. It's definitely good news that the project is meeting it's goals so far at this early stage of reorganization. If things keep up this way, residents of RUS cities will see service by this fall.

Mstar Down to a Single Engineer?

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We've all known that the situation at Mstar was dire, but who would have guessed it was this bad? Mstar is reportedly down to a single network engineer to handle all of their operations and technical support issues. The anonymous poster also claims that most of the customer service reps aren't trained to do any kind of basic troubleshooting, leaving that responsibility up to him to tackle. It sounds like the turmoil continues.

h/t: Dirk van der Woude

EXCLUSIVE: Veracity Pulls Out of Broadweave Merger, Sorenson Possibly Backing Out, iProvo Sale on Verge of Failure

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High placed sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, have confirmed that Veracity has pulled out of the merger with Broadweave and that Sorenson Capital may have withdrawn financial backing as a result. The 60-day delay cited by Broadweave in the papers is rumored to be buying time to find new backers. The loss of Veracity combined with the iProvo NOC employees who have left means that video experience is almost non-existent and staff resources will be stretched dangerously thin. This may account for anonymous commenters who have reported issues reaching customer service over the last several days. When asked about these details, Provo City employees involved in the deal were unaware of the failure of the merger.

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iProvo D-Day Arrives with Deafening Silence

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The deadline for Broadweave's takeover of iProvo has come and gone without much news or fanfare at all. In fact, other than the phone customers from Mstar, we don't know if any transition has taken place. Neither the Daily Herald nor Deseret News could reach Broadweave for comment and I know that Joe Pyrah has been trying for about a week. Broadweave's website also lacks updates on the current status of the transition. Either one of two things has happened: the sale still isn't finalized or the transfer has gone over so seamlessly that nobody noticed. Anyone care to shed some light on it? (Free tip: when the press is trying to get a hold of you, get back to them quickly. Not responding to a reporter looks really bad.)

Visitor comments on the phone switch have been mixed. One commenter reported a significant degradation of call quality after the switch and blames Veracity's phone switch, one that he alleges to have had problems for a long time now. On the flip side, multiple comments have indicated that customer support is substantially improved and it's easy to reach someone with questions via phone or e-mail, certainly an area where Mstar received a lot of harsh criticism. Certainly the ability to accomplish the emergency port of 1200 numbers was impressive.

I think the real test of the transition will be when the video customers are cut over. Four of the iProvo NOC technicians left prior to the sale being finalized and Veracity is primarily in the voice and data business. Broadweave doesn't bring a lot of in-house video experience to the table either with just a small pilot operating in the Sienna Hills subdivision of Washington City. A lot of complaints about the system video centered on advanced features such as VOD, HDTV and DVR, areas where rapid improvement will need to be made.

Comcast has already been attempting to capitalize on the uncertainty of the transition and if they can push those missing features via their own products, don't doubt that they will. Several commenters have reported receiving promotional offers in the mail pushing triple-play with a DVR for $70/mo for 6 months. Ads have also appeared in the Daily Herald to entice business-class customers, the most lucrative accounts, into switching to Comcast. Given the lack of notice from Broadweave about the switch and the somewhat confusing pricing information concerning package pricing, Comcast may have a winning bet with their FUD campaign.

As usual, any comments that fill in the gaps or relate user experiences are appreciated.

Report From the Initial Meeting of U-CAN

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Today was the inaugural meeting of the UTOPIA Citizens Advisory Network or U-CAN for short. Attendance was about a dozen and we had some great conversations getting caught up on the status of UTOPIA and an idea of where it's going. Some highlights:

  • UTOPIA is looking at using Special Assessment Areas to expand services in non-member areas and unincorporated county lands. It's a voluntary tax increase in order to pay for deploying the network and doing the installation costs in a specified area that takes advantage of 15-year government bonds and the low interest rates they enjoy. The cost of installation will be assessed entirely to members of the SAA.
  • There's going to be some announcements soon on new service providers as soon as next week. Up to 4 could be announced over the next month and at least one is rumored to be interested in providing triple-play services.
  • The new bond closed in late May as planned, so we may yet see construction by August. The UTOPIA website is actively soliciting new employees, a Business Sales Director and Teams Coordinator, as well as an RFP for asset management software and services.
  • Speaking of UTOPIA's website, they are working on a new one with more updates and information. This will also include a mapping application to show you where the demand for UTOPIA is so you can find out if your neighborhood is higher or lower on the priority list.

Meetings are going to be held at least monthly and will rotate between the member cities to give everyone an equal chance to participate. I'm also planning on provisional monthly meetings outside of this rotation for Davis, Salt Lake and Utah Counties to encourage better participation in pledging member cities. The regular monthly meetings will be as follows:

  • July 2008: Orem (Utah County)
  • August 2008: Layton (Davis County)
  • September 2008: Brigham City (Box Elder County)
  • October 2008: Murray (Salt Lake County)
  • November 2008: Lindon (Utah County)
  • December 2008: Centerville (Davis County)

I'll announce the meeting times and locations here on the website as they are scheduled. Meetings will be tentatively planned for the 4th Saturday of the month at noon. If you want to receive U-CAN related announcements via e-mail, send a blank message to [email protected] to get on the mailing list.

Comcast Makes Final Four in Comsumerist's Worst Company in America 2008

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Most companies would normally be excited to be a semi-finalist for an award, but not this time. Comcast has managed to bump off Menu Foods, The American Arbitration Association, Ticketmaster and even Exxon in its quest to become Worst Company in America 2008. It now faces off against Diebold, stealer of elections and maker of faulty voting systems, for the, er, "privilege" of going head-to-head with the "winner" of the Walmart vs. Countrywide faceoff.

Overall, telecom was heavily represented in Comsumerist's annual choosing of a winner/loser. Charter, Time Warner, Sprint, Dish Network, AT&T, Cox, DirecTV and Verizon each grabbed one of the initial 32 spots, giving cable, television and phone companies more than a quarter of the roster. Is it any wonder that these companies also consistently place near the bottom of the American Consumer Satisfaction Index?

Reflecting on Carterphone: Why Open Networks Are Needed

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Bring up the term "regulation" and you're often going to think of heavy-handed mandates, byzantine rules and unresponsive bureaucracies. Despite this popular image of regulation, it sometimes works.

Ars Technica reminds us of the 40-year-old Carterphone decision that the FCC handed down 40 years ago yesterday. The landmark decision allowed third parties to start attaching any device they wanted to the public phone network so long as it did not cause interference. Not only did it let us pick and choose our handsets, it also gave birth to devices as varied as the answering machine and modem.

The decision has even been cited in mandates to support CableCARD (despite it being a largely stillborn technology) and open access on the 700MHz spectrum, something that Verizon is trying to subvert. With the Carterphone decision in mind, we should also be exited to know that in addition to banning exclusive cable television contracts in apartment buildings, they also dropped the hammer on exclusive phone service.

Even so, regulation sometimes fails us. Some small ISPs are having their day before the Supreme Court to nail AT&T to the wall on wholesale line-sharing rates. Their argument is that the fees were designed to give the incumbent carrier a significant advantage over competitors. Many CLECs and competing ISPs brought up the same allegations throughout the 90s, and with fewer ISPs today than in 1997, the accusation has legs.

There's also the issue of network neutrality hanging up in the air. Big companies like AT&T and Verizon are scared to death of mandates from Congress, especially with how badly Comcast has been skewered over their secretive throttling and booting users who use too much of their "unlimited" Internet. Their angle is to try and get the FCC to approve a plan favorable to their interests before a less-friendly White House takes over. The good news is that the mere threat of regulation has forced them to move pretty far from their original positions, a move that's good for consumers.

When you have a network with competing service providers, interchangable equipment and freely-moving applications, consumers and innovation win. Open platforms like the kind that Carterphone created should be encouraged instead of hampered.