Tag Archives: iProvo

Broadweave Misses Another Again Uses Reserve for Payment Despite Claiming Sharply Increased Revenues

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The Daily Herald reported today that Broadweave failed yet again to make their payments to Provo from their operating revenues, dipping into the reserve fund for the third month in a row. This is despite claiming revenues that have increased 20% in the last 6 months and adding 400 more subscribers since last month. Some back of the napkin figures from a telecom professional I know shows that Broadweave may need to add as many as 5,000 new subscribers at an ARPU of nearly $65/mo in order to make that bond payment.

Because of the weather, new installs are challenging at best. Trenching the frozen ground isn’t much of an option right now which would force new installs to lay fiber across their lawn until the trench and conduit can be put in. Odds are that a lot of the new subscribers are incoming college kids for the winter semester, the ones that are predominantly Internet-only subscribers and disproportionately heavy users.

Since the only data we have is pre-Broadweave or heavily filtered, all we have to go on are best guesses. So far, though, it’s not looking too good. If they experience a sudden drop in subs in May-June, we’ll know for sure that the student population is making up a large proportion of the subscribers.

Rumor: Broadweave Defaulting on iProvo?

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Sounds like the iProvo troubles are about to get bigger. According to a Nuvont installer who would like to remain nameless, Broadweave has defaulted and could likely be returning the network to the city in very short order. Nuvont is also trying to switch video customers from iProvo to Dish Network, presumably in preparation for serious network troubles. This could very well mean the end of both Broadweave and Mayor Billings’ political future.

Anyone else out there heard about this?

Broadweave Fails to Make November Payment

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The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Broadweave has failed to make its November payment to Provo City, instead having to rely on the security deposit. CEO Steve “we’re meeting our financial goals” Christensen and Mayor Billings both tried to gloss over the missed payment while Steve Turley, predictably, has called it bad news. Of course, if Broadweave is unable to bill their customers, that might account for coming up short. This will most certainly be a major issue during Provo’s upcoming municipal elections.

Rumor Confirmed? Subscriber Says That Broadweave Isn't Billing

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One of the allegations from the Broadweave insider is that they don’t know who their customers are until they call in for support. A commenter recent confirmed this saying that they had been installed in August but have yet to receive a bill for any service and says that a neighbor is in the same boat. The question, of course, is if Broadweave can back-bill these customers successfully or not. It’s the customer’s responsibility to notify a company if they aren’t billed for services rendered, but good luck trying to keep the customers happy when you do it.

Anyone else getting service from Broadweave without being billed? Sound off in the comments.

Mstar, DynamicCity Were Also Bidding for iProvo

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The Salt Lake Tribune reports that city records show that Mstar and DynamicCity, the network management company for UTOPIA, also put in bids to either manage or run the city’s fiber optic network. A fourth company also reportedly made a bid, but their name is being kept secret by the city. DynamicCity President Cory Turner (who I know and who wasn’t president of DynamicCity at the time) said that the bid to operate the network was a long-shot at best. That proposal was put together by D. Keith Wilson.

Mstar’s involvement in the process, however, is rumored to be very different from how it is portrayed in this article. Word on the street is that once they caught wind of the sale and were denied based on their account being in arrears, they quickly made a deal with Broadweave to sell the customer list and have their debt forgiven. The rumor mill says that Broadweave then double-crossed Mstar when board member Fraser Bullock threatened to pull business from the law firm that employed Mstar’s principal investor and demanded payment to settle the matter.

The major dailies reportedly are all aware of these shenanigans but have gotten a lot of pressure to keep it all under wraps. I’m privvy to only the surface details of the matter, but any current or former Mstar employees who’d like to fill in the gaps is invited to call or e-mail me.

The Now-Missing Broadweave Post

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Yes, it’s gone. The short version is that after feedback and some careful consideration, I determined it was boneheaded to have even posted the full letter in the first place. Instead, I’ll summarize the key allegations and rumors from the tipster who sent it to me:

  • Lax physical and logical security
  • Poor customer service
  • Preferential treatment of VIPs such as city council members
  • No accurate record of which customers to bill and multiple changes of the billing system
  • Little oversight from the corporate office
  • Sexual harassment and hostile working environment

A current Broadweave employee wrote that most of the allegations were either untrue or half-truths. Given their explosive nature, the letters themselves shouldn’t have even gone up in the first place. It was dumb on my part and I should have just summarized the key points.

The only one that I have any kind of confirmation on is the security. I’ve had at least three sources confirm that there was a significant theft of long-distance services (6-figure, one of them says). I initially thought it was just bad luck, but a lack of appropriate security would make me reconsider that. Everything else? That’s anyone’s guess.

Mayor Billings Put on the Broadweave Board

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The Provo City council voted to put Mayor Billings on Broadweave’s board as the official representative from the city. I wonder, however, if this will provide adequate city oversight or not. Mayor Billings kept the council in the dark during the negotiation of the deal and there have been a lot of negative rumors about Broadweave’s financial condition. This bring up the obvious question: would the mayor delay disclosure of negative information to the council to save his own political hide? It’s worth asking given the number of other questionable deals that Provo has managed to get itself into during his terms as mayor.

Headend Brawl: UTOPIA and Provo at Odds on Shared Assets

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As the clock ticks down on a contract between UTOPIA and Provo for a shared video headend, the fight over who owes who money is starting to heat up. I’ve had a lot of anonymous tipsters relating details and rumors over some strong disagreements regarding compensating UTOPIA for their portion of the headend, a subject that appears to be strongly muddied by unclear contracts with Broadweave.

I’m no lawyer, but from looking at the headend agreement, it appears that Provo sold UTOPIA’s interest in both the VOD and Wildvine servers to Broadweave as a part of the sale of iProvo and used UTOPIA’s unused exercise of the right of first refusal as consent to do so. If that is the case, UTOPIA would naturally like to be paid for their share of that asset; it just isn’t clear who should cut the check, City of Provo or Broadweave. Given that the total is rumored to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range, I can imagine that all parties involved are taking a strong stance on their respective positions.

The Daily Herald reported that both Kevin Garlick of Provo and Todd Marriott of UTOPIA are confident they can work something out, though I’ve heard that the problem in all of this is Broadweave CEO Steve Christensen who refuses to reach any kind of agreement. It looks like the headend agreement with Broadweave was signed in August of 2007 and I don’t think UTOPIA was involved in that discussion. This is coming back to bite Provo since they decided to make a lot of assumptions instead of talking it through with their partner.

Given the price tag and the tight financial situations with Provo, UTOPIA and Broadweave, I’m anticipating that this disagreement will get ugly if none of the sides plans to budge. Here’s to hoping they work out some kind of equitable solution instead of ended up in an “all sides lose” expensive legal action.

Utah Fiber Networks, Watch Your Back

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It looks like there’s a new sherriff in town: UTOPIA Watchdog and Broadweave Watchdog. The sites are registered anonymously, but the information posted leads me to believe that the person(s) operating them has been following both systems very closely and plans to not hold back at all. For instance, the websites allege that Provo intentionally over-valued the video headend in an effort to prevent UTOPIA from exercising the right of first refusal. (That would go a long way towards explaining the acrimony between the two over this shared asset.) I’m sure that as time goes by, we’ll see some interesting developments popping up on these two sites.

Rumor: Broadweave Tight on Cash, May Outsource Call Center Functions

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I’ve had several anonymous tips regarding Broadweave lately that aren’t any kind of good news for the company. These sources say that Broadweave, despite their happy face for the press, is running very tight on cash and is planning to outsource their call center as a way to cut costs. This could mean some very serious service difficulties in the near future and runs contrary to their promises to keep the company operations on iProvo within the city limits. If true, it sounds like Broadweave is coming unravelled much faster than even the harshest critics could have anticipated.