The Transition of iProvo Customers: A Rocky Road Ahead?

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An anonymous tipster raised a lot of good points concerning the transfer of customers from Mstar to Broadweave. There's less than three weeks left until the planned cutover, yet customers haven't been getting written notice of such. Despite intense media coverage and multiple public hearings, many customers could be left without any idea as to how to obtain technical support or change services. It's also concerning when you consider that the FCC requires at least 30 days written notice when changing channel lineups or pricing, the former of which is highly likely and the latter of which is already confirmed.

Internet customers are likely to be the most widely affected. Mstar customers with static IP addresses are certain to see a change as I'm sure that Mstar did not also sell their valuable assignments from ARIN. Broadweave will also need at least 40 class C assignments from ARIN to provide enough IP addresses just for existing customers, yet they currently have only 12 and is probably using most of them in Traverse Mountain. Veracity has around 16, though a large number of those are likely already soaked up by customers on UTOPIA, Off-Campus Communications and their business customers over Qwest's network. Nuvont doesn't even have a whole class C to bring to the table.

All in all, they're falling VERY short of the necessary IPs to run the network. The only way they'll have enough is if iProvo is also selling the rights on their IP assignments, a chunk of over 70 class C blocks. There's no documentation on the Provo City website to show one way or the other if that asset is part of the deal, but it would be foolish for the city to include it in this environment of tightening IPv4 assignments without a nice premium. Then again, I don't think they've shown that negotiating is their specialty.

If you're a current iProvo customer who will be transitioning to Broadweave, I'd encourage you to leave your experiences in the comments section. 

Centerville Forming UTOPIA Oversight Committee

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Centerville is taking a proactive role in making sure UTOPIA's health stays under close watch by forming an advisory committee composed of both residents and city officials. The city council is currently accepting applications from residents who are interested in participating and the word on the street is that three will be chosen to help provide feedback on UTOPIA and participate in promotional efforts. If you're interested in serving on the committee, contact your city council member. If you don't get selected, there's still going to be plenty of opportunities through U-CAN. 

Time Warner Cable Starts Metering Internet Usage, Others to Follow Suit

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While we've known this was coming for a while now, Time Warner Cable has finally started a pilot to meter Internet usage complete with hefty overage fees. New customers in Beaumont, TX will have to put up with meager 40GB per month cap, enough for grandma and folks who do light surfing but entirely inadequate for consumers of online media, gamers, telecommuters and file-sharers. Don't want to pony up $55/mo for the highest tier of service? You could get a cap as low as 5GB per month. Overages will run $1 per GB while many retail hosting providers charge less than $0.50 for the same amount of transfer.

They aren't the only ones either. AT&T is considering caps starting this fall, Qwest already boots high-bandwidth users and even Verizon is keeping its options open for download caps on the speedy new FIOS network though it has no immediate plans to do so. Comcast has also been kicking around the idea of transfer caps (albeit at a generous 250GB per month) and has, for the time being, decided on a protocol-agnostic traffic-shaping policy during peak hours only. After months of being hammered for throttling primarily file-sharers, Comcast must be ready for a respite from angry users.

It seems like the age of all-you-can-eat Internet is rapidly drawing to a close as the financial realities of unrestrained data transfer start to roost with providers unwilling or unable to invest in next-generation infrastructure. Compare this with the emergence of competitive unlimited-use cellular voice plans from Verizon, Sprint and AT&T within weeks of each other and the proliferation of unlimited-use landlines from Vonage, Comcast and Cox. I guess everything old is new again.

Press Release: UTOPIA Launches New Citizens Advisory Network

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

UTOPIA Executive Director Todd Marriott has announced the formation of the UTOPIA Citizens Advisory Network (U-CAN) to help provide feedback from the public on the direction UTOPIA is going. Jesse Harris, a local activist who runs FreeUTOPIA.org, has been selected to chair the new group. Harris has spent significant time and effort following developments related to UTOPIA since September of 2006. “Our goal is to help spread the word about UTOPIA and provide ideas on how the network can improve,” he said. He continued: “I’m very excited to bring the community of municipal telecommunications supporters together so that we can help make this network succeed.”

U-CAN plans to hold its first meeting on Saturday June 28 from noon until 1:30PM at the Ruth Vine Tyler Library, 8041 S Wood Street in Midvale. A representative from UTOPIA will be on hand to answer questions from meeting attendees. Regular monthly meetings will be scheduled across the Wasatch Front to give residents of all member cities an equal chance to participate.

About UTOPIA: UTOPIA is a consortium of 16 Utah cities that provides a next-generation fiber optic network for providers of telecommunications services and provides some of the fastest Internet speeds in the nation. It promotes a competitive marketplace by allowing smaller private companies to lease the network and provide services to residents within its service area and is open to allowing new providers and services on the network.

About Jesse Harris: Mr. Harris is an IT professional from White City Township and activist for municipal fiber optic networks. He has been blogging about municipal fiber optic projects and telecommunications at FreeUTOPIA.org since September of 2006. He is a recognized authority on municipal telecommunications projects in Utah and has been interviewed about UTOPIA and iProvo by the Salt Lake Tribune, Deseret News, Salt Lake City Weekly and Daily Herald. 

iProvo Sale Approved

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By a slim 4-3 margin, Provo's Municipal Council approved the sale of iProvo to Broadweave with Sherrie Hall Everett, Steve Turley and Cindy Clark voting against the deal. Now the ball is in Broadweave's court: perform or your name is mud. This puts Provo citizens in a tough bind. If Broadweave fails to meet its financial obligations (which I very much anticipate), the city and its residents get back a network with no providers and may have to pay to buy back the video head-end and any upgrades done. On the flip side, a lack of municipal ownership means citizens aren't as invested in the success of iProvo.

Best of luck to you Broadweave, but few of us regular Joes think you can do it.

(Read more from the Deseret News and Tribune.)

Letter to Provo's Municipal Council

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I sent the following letter to members of Provo's Municipal Council on June 2, 2008.

Greetings Members of the Council;

I apologize for the last-minute nature of this communication. I've been waiting to collect as much information as possible before I e-mail you important information on why Broadweave is the wrong company to sell iProvo to.

Certainly basic honesty seems to be an issue with Broadweave. As of May 15, they have neglected to obtain business licenses in any municipality where they do business. Washington City has considered referring the matter to enforcement. (See: http://www.freeutopia.org/2008/05/15/broadweave-lacks-proper-business-licenses-corporation-filings/) They also have repeatedly misrepresented their company's age, claiming to have existed since 1999, yet nothing shows that the company existed prior to 2003. In an interview today, Steve Christensen, Broadweave's CEO, is now claiming the company has been around since 2003. Why the lie? (See: http://www.freeutopia.org/2008/05/16/broadweave-did-not-exist-prior-to-2003-website-claims-first-contract-in-1999/
and http://www.freeutopia.org/2008/06/02/broadweave-doubletalks-iprovo-on-couchcast/) They have also talked up the importance of equipment ownership and the poor value of open networks while failing to practice what they preach. (See: http://www.freeutopia.org/2008/05/19/broadweaves-double-talk-on-open-networks/ and http://www.freeutopia.org/2008/05/20/broadweaves-double-talk-on-equipment-ownership/) It is even rumored that they have tax liens filed against them by the state for failure to pay their withholding taxes for November and December of 2007. (See: http://www.freeutopia.org/2008/05/16/evaluating-the-iprovo-asset-purchase-agreement/#comment-4887) Can you really trust a company that shows so many signs of being untrustworthy?

This says nothing of their expansion plans either. The Eagle Broadband network they have purchased in Houston was a seriously distressed asset. In order to make it usable, they need to build a NOC, negotiation franchise agreements and transport rights and replace some vital missing equipment. They also need to overcome a negative consumer perception. At the time that OEN, the previous network operator, went out of business, there were 1500 customers, all of whom lost their service with zero notice. That kind of poor experience means they will be plowing millions upon millions into a network with a strongly negative customer perception. This says nothing of their attempt to pursue developments in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and California, pursuits that will require even more money that they do not have.

So what of their technical experience? While Veracity brings in a lot of smart guys, Broadweave itself has zero experience delivering video in Traverse Mountain and has fewer than 30 video customers in Sienna Hills, a subdivision sitting in one of the areas hardest-hit by the subprime mortgage meltdown. Integrating the Veracity team, one that offers very limited video experience, will take months and result in major system hiccups. They will also have to attempt to integrate city employees from the NOC, many of whom are highly opposed to the transaction and have negative opinions of their soon-to-be co-workers. Replacing these highly-skilled employees will be very expensive and have a strong negative impact on network operations, especially in Utah's tight labor market.

The option you are presented with is a terrible one, to spend 19 years financing the operations of a dishonest company with big dreams and small execution that plans to acquire a basket full of technical and HR problems. I urge you in the strongest possible terms to reject this rent-to-own arrangement and find some other way to resolve the problems behind iProvo.

If you have any additional questions, I would be more than happy to answer them and would request that this letter be entered in as part of the public record on behalf of proponents of open municipal fiber optic networks.

—
Jesse Harris
(801) 937-4471

http://www.coolestfamilyever.com/
http://www.freeutopia.org/

Broadweave's Doubletalk on Project Sizes

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If you're going to inflate your company size, it's best not to leave evidence to the contrary. Broadweave claimed in a press release that the Traverse Mountain community encompasses over 8,000 homes, yet an interview between KSL Radio and Steve Christensen of Traverse Mountain shows the project to be more along the scale of 3,500 homes. This isn't the only instance either. Broadweave claimed before Provo's Municipal Council on Tuesday May 27 that the Sienna Hills area in Washington City would provide them access to over 20,000 residences, yet the entire utility easement encompasses only 740 acres. Unless the developer is looking at cramming more than 27 residences into each acre, the claim is simply absurd. Maybe they're already counting unpromised future contracts in that total. Didn't other companies already try that one?

Broadweave (Double)Talks iProvo on CouchCast

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Online talk radio show CouchCast had Steve Christensen on as a guest to discuss the sale of iProvo. Go ahead and give the show a listen.

A few observations:

  • Steve Christensen said himself on the show that Broadweave has been around since 2003, yet this conflicts with his statements to the Provo Municipal Council and the data found on Broadweave's own website. I'm glad that he's finally telling the truth about Broadweave's age, but why lie in the first place when it can be easily debunked?
  • Steve played the blame game regarding the phone problems again, saying that the network technology is the problem. (I can only assume he's blaming the portals.) However, he's also blamed the existing providers since they outsource their phone operations and don't own their own phone switches. Which is it? I haven't heard from any UTOPIA customers that report the same voice issues that iProvo seems to have, so I'm not betting any money on the providers as the issue. If it is the portals, why not go with a cheaper TA instead of replacing the entire portal? Sure, it makes sense to switch to another portal for future installations, but it makes little sense to do a wholesale replacement of existing equipment for all customers.
  • A central reason why telecommunications sucks so bad is that we've been pumping state and federal dollars into propping up incumbent phone carriers like Qwest while enforcing very few requirements that serve the public interest. A key point of municipal broadband is that if we're going to require public money to provide universal access to telecommunications, we should start demanding public ownership of the infrastructure as well. Steve Christensen correctly points out that public money is required to make it work, but incorrectly assumes that we have to continue this pattern of what Frank Staheli calls the "butt kiss" market to make it happen. It's corporate welfare at its best, insisting that a public good be subject entirely to private ownership but with plenty of public funds.

I've yet to find anything about this deal that doesn't instill a lack of trust and undermine confidence in Broadweave's ability to execute and straight-talk.

Reminder: iProvo and AFCNet Meetings on Tuesday

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Just a friendly reminder that Provo will be entertaining the motions to sell iProvo at a municipal council meeting on Tuesday the 3rd. The meeting will be starting at 5:30PM instead of the normal 7PM (h/t: Gary Thornock) and will include a lot of other business items as well. It's possible that they will vote at this meeting, but I'm betting they punt for the time being to take more time to evaluate the deal. I expect the hearing to last a VERY long time, just like the last one.

American Fork will also entertain a final motion to sell AFCNet to Orem-based Surpha, a company that I know precious little about. Given that the city has experience with Surpha as an ISP and it has been negotiated largely in the open for months now, I'm guessing the vote is just a formality. That meeting is also on Tuesday the 3rd, but at 7PM.

The MSTAR Legal Threat: Do they have a case?

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I just took a moment to read through the city's code for disposal of surplus property to see if, as a non-lawyer, I could validate MSTAR's claims that they have a shot at legal action should the sale of iProvo be approved as currently constituted. After perusing Title 3, Chapter 3.04 of the city code, it seems like they don't really have much to lean on under that section. The mayor has broad authority to enter into contracts and ask the council to approve them after the fact and many of the normal requirements for the addition of properties to the Surplus Property List can be waived by council resolution. Even the requirement for a cash purchase can be waived by resolution.

It's possible that some section of state law trumps the city code regarding the sale of real property, but I don't seem to be able to find it. Utah Code 10-7-86 makes adoption of the Utah Procurement Code optional, not mandatory and large chunks of Utah Code 10-8-2 seems to be word-for-word what's in the city code. As much as I dislike the way in which this RFP was conducted, I'm having a hard time finding anything illegal about it, though this doesn't preclude anyone from filing a civil suit to block the sale.

I'm curious to know exactly what MSTAR's argument is and welcome any comments that might shed light on it.