Category Archives: News

News articles about UTOPIA from around the country and around the world.

UTOPIA Moving Forward in Brigham City

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UTOPIA has obtained the approval of Brigham City to move forward with the plan to create a voluntary SAA to provide services to over 1,600 residences. Reports from the meeting were that the crowd was almost unanimously in favor of approval and the city council voted 4-1* in their favor. This means that residents who have opted in will be able to receive service in exchange for either a $3,000 connection fee up-front or paid over a period of 20 years via a city-backed bond. Anyone who has not signed up for service will not be expected to pay any part of this bond.

The good news is that with the number of homes participating, the entire city will be covered with service. Residents have until early December to opt to participate in the bond. Anyone who wishes to get hooked up after that will have to come up with the money up-front or join up with enough other residents to form a new bond. Best of all, the city will retain ownership of all portions of the network built under the SAA with the potential to get other portions of the network placed under city ownership in the future.

UTOPIA also picked up a new service provider, Brigham.net. They’re the typical dial-up-come-DSL ISP that’s hit hard times as Qwest plays hardball. (While Qwest will deny it, they’ve been using the list of wholesale line orders from other service providers to poach DSL customers.) While it is unclear if/when Brigham.net plans to expand beyond its home town, it certainly is a good thing for residents of Brigham City to have even more competitive choice. This could also bring an additional 145 customers to UTOPIA beyond the 1600 that have already opted in.

As part of the launch, the long-delayed white label video product will be ready to go. (It’s about time since it was starting to feel like the Duke Nukem Forever of fiber networks.) Apparently the hold-up was Turner. UTOPIA wanted to transport the video signal over a secure fiber network to their headend and Turner was the only programmer who would have none of it. After much negotiation, UTOPIA had to get a dish to bring in Turner networks like TNT, TCM, CNN, and Cartoon Network. The packages are only going to come in a few basic flavors and I wasn’t able to get details on what VOD options, if any, will be included with it. The channel lineups are currently posted on their website if you want to take a look; it appears to be pretty complete to me.

So how is Qwest reacting? Just as you would expect them to. They have filed a GRAMA request with Brigham City to obtain the documents forming the SAA and may take legal action to stop it from forming. The problem here, though, is that UTOPIA is just a contractor in the middle of it all. Qwest will have to sue Brigham City to stop the SAA to, in effect, tell them that they can’t let their residents buy a fiber optic network of their own. (Yes, it’s as dumb as it sounds.) I sincerely hope Qwest will back off on this one.

(*Unsurprisingly, Ruth Jensen was the lone no vote and continued to parrot telecom talking points. She was also reportedly excessively harsh and unprofessional with the UTOPIA representatives at the meeting to the point of being called out by some residents. I’m also a bit concerned that she apparently didn’t know the difference between a voluntary SAA and an involuntary SAA. Isn’t that the kind of thing that a city council member should know?)

BREAKING: Gov. Herbert Recommends UTOPIA for Broadband Stimulus

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Peter Pratt at StimulatingBroadband.com tipped me off that Gov. Herbert has made his recommendations to NTIA and that all three of UTOPIA’s proposals are on the list. This could pump over $57M into the network at a time when capital for expansion is rather difficult to come by. The money could be ready to use as early as February. While this isn’t the final word on which projects will be approved, the NTIA is very likely to go along with the recommendations from the states. The feds didn’t give independent reviewers a lot of time to screen applications before sending them to the states.

The money will be set aside for rural and underserved areas of member cities, so expect to see the money flow into Lindon, Centerville, Payson, Brigham City, Perry, and any leftover portions of Tremonton first. Residents in these cities are very likely to see a sharply reduced cost for an SAA (most likely) or the return of the free install (quite unlikely). Overall, this will mean a big expansion of UTOPIA availability which can only help the bottom line. UTOPIA’s new management will likely have a targeted build plan meant to maximize new subscribers; previously, the building had been willy-nilly.

UTOPIA isn’t the only winner in Herbert’s recommendations. UEN and the UTA picked up endorsements as did several projects from the Navajo Nation. Emery Telecom also got the nod for its three proposals to bring FTTP to its service areas in rural Utah, no doubt to unify its separate CATV and phone systems as part of the upgrade. (Seriously, guys, kudos on being one of the few rural ILECs doing something so ambitious.) There’s also an application to build a community WiFi cloud in Washington County.

All in all, it’s good news for Utah’s broadband.

Qwest's Sneaky Stimulus Play

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From reviewing the list of stimulus applicants, you’d think Qwest decided not to partake in the feeding frenzy. Think again. Instead of applying directly, Qwest chose to allow an intermediary to make the application, an intermediary that would then spend the money on Qwest infrastructure and services. I’m referring to the applications from the University of Utah.

You may think hey, what does the U plan to do with Qwest? The reality is that the application from the university was on behalf of UEN. UEN contracts with several companies to build and operate 10GbE and 1GbE links to educational facilities, but the lion’s share of the money goes to Qwest. Should the application get approval, it is nothing more than a hand-out to Qwest to build a network with taxpayer dollars and charge their normal exorbitant rates for service with no real strings attached.

I hope that whoever is reviewing NTIA applications at the state level sees right through this ruse.

Provo Approves Veracity Proposal

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As I predicted yesterday, Provo’s Municipal Council signed off on the proposal from Veracity to merge with Broadweave and float some of the bond payment for 10 years. (I also totally called Steve Turley voting against the proposal.) I’m not surprised at all given the political climate surrounding the network. Iin a worst-case scenario where Veracity gives the network back, Provo will have had more time to come up with a Plan B and the willingness to execute it.

Want to read more? The Daily Herald and Deseret News both have their articles up.

Broadband Stimulus Applicants Revealed

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As of a couple of days ago, applicants for broadband stimulus funds are now listed on the NTIA’s website. Utah has a number of applicants including the University of Utah, The Utah Transit Authority, and, not surprisingly, UTOPIA.

Several rural ILECs have also gotten into the game including Emery Telecom and Manti Tele Communications. Emery is apparently looking to deploy FTTP to beef up their triple-play offerings and replace their existing HFC CATV network. The finished product would be active Ethernet like iProvo and UTOPIA with up to 1Gbps at each address served. A separate request would use FTTN and wireless to reach more remote areas. Manti, meanwhile, is looking to use WiMax to reach more remote areas that currently do not have broadband service. Both of these projects are good news for Utahns.

Ogden City has also made an application to provide broadband access to government services and underserved residents. There is also an application for what appears to be a city-wide WiFi network. Given their reluctance to join UTOPIA, it’s rather surprising that they have done an about-face on city-provided services. My best guess is that they were holding out for someone else to pay for it.

So what about UTOPIA? They made three separate applications totaling around $54M. The only thing available is a general overview, but the requests appear to be targeted at Orem, Murray, Midvale, West Valley City, Layton, and Centerville. One of them hints at using a special assessment area (SAA) to triple the impact of at least $10.5M of the money applied for. Depending on how fast NTIA can review and approve applications, we may soon know if there will be more money for UTOPIA construction in the near term.

With applicants asking for 7 times what’s available in the first round, it will be interesting to see who makes the cut.

Layton Languishing: No New UTOPIA Construction for 1-2 Years

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I received word from a reader that an engineer with Layton City has indicated that new UTOPIA construction in the city will be on hold for at least a year, possibly as long as two years. That’s right, up to two years without the men in work boots, that’s is going to retard progress. The existing fiber will be served, but new installs will now entirely depend on either developers or members of a special assessment area to foot the bill. The city blames the slow economy and lack of federal funding for the halt in construction. Given that the first tranches of broadband stimulus funding from the feds is meant for rural and underserved areas, I wouldn’t count on any federal assistance to get things moving anytime soon.

(h/t: Dan Langford)

Veracity Customers as Collateral: Where's the Skin in the Game?

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The Salt Lake Tribune wrote up an article on Tuesday’s decision to delay the vote on accepting Veracity’s offer and it brings up interesting points on how the loan from the Energy Department’s reserves will be secured. The plan is to have existing customer accounts and any new accounts on the network act as collateral as well as Veracity’s customers on iProvo. Veracity, however, is not required to include any customers not on iProvo included in that total.

I think this raises important questions about how much skin Veracity has in this game. If Provo ended up having to seize the collateral after a default, what can they do with it? They’re legally barred from selling the services to those customers and the customers themselves will have little value of their own without the network. In that scenario, the network would be quite distressed and wouldn’t be able to fetch the same sale price as it had before. It would also be hard to convince another provider to buy the customer list.

I also have a problem with the appearance that Veracity has structured a deal that insulates them from almost all risk. If there’s nothing contractually stopping them from doing so, they could switch their customers back from iProvo to Qwest transport just before defaulting and lose nothing in the deal. If that is the case, Veracity has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I think Veracity is a great company providing great services, but my inner skeptic says that this needs additional scrutiny. I’d feel a lot more comfortable with this proposal if I felt that they had more risk involved.

Provo Municipal Council to Consider Broadweave/Veracity Deal Tomorrow

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Provo’s municipal council will meet tomorrow to discuss and vote on the proposal from Veracity and Broadweave to ease up on payments for a few years. The meeting will be at 7PM in the council chambers at 351 W. Center St. I’d encourage everyone to show up and share your thoughts with the Council.

As an aside, the Herald’s editorial board sees what I do: the choice between two options, neither of which is terribly palatable. I still don’t know that I favor one option over the other. Despite being a loud proponent of open networks, the management that Provo picks hasn’t exactly shown competency in the area. It’s hard to tell if Provo has more of a stomach for either extending their risk or doing the work that is necessary to make the network work under city control. In either event, I want to make sure that the council has considered their options and is making their decision based on facts and rational thinking, not fear.

Take 2: Veracity/Broadweave Merger Back On

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After a failed attempt at merger around a year ago, Veracity and Broadweave have decided to give a merger a second shot. The new company will be named Veracity Networks with Veracity’s Drew Peterson as CEO. Broadweave CEO Dave Moon will remain on the board.

So what’s the new company’s first step? To go to Provo’s city council to ask for a “restructuring” of the bond debt to lower payments by $82K per month for 18 months. I’m not sure how exactly that will work out without the city basically floating the difference during that time frame (an action surely to come under fire from both incumbent providers), but I’m hoping Broadweave will take a new tack with being a bit more open as to what the heck they’re doing. After all, a significant amount of public money is still on the line and if they ask Provo to dip into the till to keep things going, citizens deserve to know what they’re getting for what may be an interest-free loan.

Broadweave was gracious enough to invite me down to their offices to inform me personally. After the sharp criticisms I’ve had for the company, I was surprised they extended the olive branch. I suppose that’s one of the many positive side effects of an almost total refresh of company management. All the same, the visit was very cordial and felt very much like a press release event rather than a heart-to-heart. (I’m still sure that my picture is on more than a few dartboards around the office.)

I see the merger as a bit of a mixed bag. Veracity brings a lot to the table including large corporate customers, experience competing against and working with incumbents (they offer services on Qwest’s network), a stable cash flow, and significant technical experience. They also bring potential access to UTOPIA for Broadweave via their existing contracts.

On the other hand, asking for another hand-out from the city instead of making it on their own will likely rankle a city council that thought they’d managed to wash their hands of the deal. If the council doesn’t go along, it begs the question as to where additional funding will be found from. Not knowing what Veracity’s available cash flow is, it’s hard to tell if that side of the equation would be able to staunch the flow of money from the surety enough to allow Broadweave/Veracity to sign up more customers. At the very least, this makes iProvo even more of an election issue than it was before for all sitting council members as well as the mayor.

For the time being, I’m content to watch from a distance and see what happens. My opinion of Broadweave hasn’t yet been changed, but I’ll willing to give them a second chance and benefit of a doubt.

UTOPIA Backhaul Brings FuzeCore Wireless to Garland

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Several months ago, FuzeCore said it was looking into using UTOPIA lines in Tremonton to serve the neighboring town of Garfield Garland. Looks like as of 6 weeks ago, they started doing it over a 6-mile radius that includes the neighboring towns of Elwood, Collingston, Fielding, Bothwell, and Deweyville. (Seriously, I don’t know how I missed the press release and Google Alerts only just now picked it up.)

Per the conversation we had at that time, FuzeCore was planning on connection speeds upwards of 10Mbps up and down with VoIP service. The website shows that they’re advertising 8Mbps+, so this is in about the right range. The best competitor Frontier can do is 3Mbps DSL with no mention of their upstream speeds or if their onerous caps will be making a comeback.

Wireless backhaul is one of the markets that I’ve been hoping UTOPIA would chase since it can greatly extend the reach and revenues of the network. Hats off to FuzeCore for using their wireless expertise from Idaho to make it happen!