Tag Archives: Tremonton

In a surprise move, Tremonton is in on Milestone Two

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macquarie_logo_2638I honestly did not expect this. Despite being one of the few cities with a near-complete network, Tremonton voted 5-0 last night to move forward with Milestone Two. This makes the tally so far four in favor (including Midvale, West Valley City, and Layton) and one against (Lindon). Votes are still scheduled in Orem, Centerville, and Murray. Payson and Brigham City have both been discussing it, but Perry has been pretty quiet.

If you live in a city that hasn’t voted, there’s still time to talk to them and urge them to move forward with Milestone Two. Check the list of events to get an idea of the when and where of what I know or contact your city directly.

UPDATE: Payson votes tonight at 6PM.

Updated List of Macquarie-related Meetings

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I’ve just received an updated list of what meetings and votes are currently scheduled to take place regarding Macquarie’s proposal to UTOPIA. As always, theses are subject to change and could be added to. If you hear anything, let me know and I’ll update accordingly.

Public Meetings and Town Halls:

  • June 3 @ 7:00PM, Lindon: Lindon City Center, 100 N State St, Lindon
  • June 4 @ 7:00PM, Tremonton: Bear River High, 1450 S Main St, Garland
  • June 5 @ 5:00PM, Orem: Orem Senior Friendship Center, 93 N 400 E, Orem
  • June 5 @ 6:30PM, Murray: Doty Education Center, Building 6 of the Intermountain Medical Center, 5121 S Cottonwood St, Murray
  • June 5 @ 7:30PM, Centerville: Centerville City Hall, 250 N Main St, Centerville
  • June 17 @ 7:00PM, Lindon: Lindon City Centr, 100 N State St, Lindon
  • June 17 @ 7:30PM, Centerville: Centerville City Hall, 250 N Main St, Centerville
  • June 19 @ 6:00PM, Orem: Orem Senior Friendship Center, 93 N 400 E, Orem

Votes:

  • June 5 @ 7:00PM, Layton: Layton City Hall, 437 N Wasatch Dr, Layton
  • June 18 @ 6:00PM, Payton: Payson City Hall, 439 W Utah Ave, Payson
  • June 24 @ 6:30PM, Murray: Murray City Hall, 5025 S State St, Murray
  • June 24, Centerville: Centerville City Hall, 250 N Main St, Centerville
  • June 26, Orem: Orem City Hall, 56 N State St, Orem
  • June 26 @ 7:00PM, Perry: Perry City Hall, 3005 W 1200 S, Perry

Some of these are cutting it pretty close to the deadline to respond of June 27. Payson is reportedly interested in finding out more, but their years of not attending board meetings with any regularity has left a huge information and expertise vacuum within the city government. I haven’t heard anything about Perry at all. Brigham City will be voting on the proposal either on June 19 or 26 during the regularly scheduled council meeting.

Schedule of Macquarie-related meetings

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macquarie_logo_2638Want to ask Macquarie some more burning questions? Interested in seeing how your city council votes? Here’s the so-far definitive list of what is happening and where. Note that any of these is subject to change and I’ll do my best to publish updates.

  • Thursday May 22: Brigham City will have an open house at the Bunderson Center, 641 E 200 N, from 6PM to 8PM. Macquarie will be there to answer one-on-one questions.
  • Tuesday May 27: Orem will have Nick Hann at the regular city council meeting to answer questions and take feedback. The council meets at 3PM in the Public Safety Training Room.
  • Tuesday May 27: Both West Valley City and Layton will be taking votes on advancing with Milestone Two during their normal city council meetings.
  • Tuesday June 3: Lindon will have a public discussion item on the city council agenda. They meet 7PM at the Lindon City Center on State St.
  • Thursday June 5: Murray will have an open house at the Doty Center inside the Intermountain Medical Center complex. It starts at 6:30PM.
  • Thursday June 5: Centerville will have an open house, education session, and public Q&A at 7:30PM. I’m assuming it’s at city hall, but the location is unclear.
  • Tuesday June 17: Centerville, Tremonton, and Lindon should all be taking votes on advancing with Milestone Two during their normal city council meetings.

Notably absent from the list are Payson and Perry, cities that seem to have adopted “bury our heads in the sand and hope for the best” as their strategy. If you live in either city, you should contact your mayor and city council to give them a nudge.

More federal dollars for UTOPIA?

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I just read today that Tremonton and Perry could see upwards of $1M to fund UTOPIA expansion. It would be as part of an earmark from Sen. Orrin Hatch to expand distance learning and telemedicine programs. In such small towns, those grants would probably finish Tremonton (about 95% done) and complete a big chunk in Perry.

h/t: Nacilbupera. He/she/they may not like UTOPIA, but they deserve some credit for finding the information.

Utah Infrastructure Agency Moving Forward

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Remember UTOPIA’s new plan to shift the cost of the network from the cities onto subscribers? It’s been moving forward in the form of the Utah Infrastructure Agency, a way for cities to bond for construction without having to put taxpayers as a whole on the hook. So far, West Valley City, Lindon, Midvale, Layton, and Orem are on board with Perry and Tremonton deciding to sit it out. Other cities are still considering signing up for it and need to hear from you.

So what exactly does this do? In short, it’s the next evolution beyond the SAA used in Brigham City. The SAA model was to  find demand, form an SAA, and then get the funds to start construction. The UIA will, instead, get the money first, find the areas of demand, and then start construction once it becomes feasible. Just like the SAA, the subscribers that get hooked up under the arrangement will be the ones footing the bill. This speeds up the process of connecting customers while still continuing to shift the burden of supporting the network away from cities and onto those who get service.

To be quite honest, I can’t see why a city wouldn’t be all over this. There’s no cost to the cities to participate and increased subscribers will only decrease or eliminate the called pledges. Given the benefits to the taxpayer, that they are taken off the hook, you’d think the Utah “Taxpayers” Association would be all for it. (Fat chance, I know.) The good news is that any city that doesn’t elect to participate now can always reconsider in the future. If your city has already declined to join (or does so in the future), you can still pester them until they reconsider.

Note: While Orem was part of the founding group of the UIA, they haven’t taken an official vote on the matter yet. There will be a public hearing on Tuesday after which the Orem City Council will decide if they will join. They chose the new bond in a 6-0 vote last time around, but the UTA is holding their rally just before the meeting to try and pack the house with opponents and scare council members into reversing course. It’s very important that UTOPIA supporters turn out in force both at the rally and the meeting to thwart these efforts. I hear there’s going to be a fun surprise for the UTA during their BBQ, so show up and be prepared for a laugh at their expense.

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.

Et tu, Frontier? Incumbent Caught Sabotaging Installs in Tremonton

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Hey Frontier? Remember how a Comcast contractor got that company some very unwanted public attention for screwing up installs? That means that your guys should try and avoid to do the same thing. I’ve gotten a report that several UTOPIA customers in Tremonton recently had their ATA for phone service hosed after a Frontier tech reconnected service without the customer’s authorization. The voltage from the line caused problems both making and receiving calls and required replacement equipment. The evidence? Previously disconnected lines from the ILEC had been reconnected to the building wiring after UTOPIA attached its line to the building wiring. That’s a piece of the NTI that only the phone company has access to.

Not only am I pretty sure that this kind of behavior is illegal, it’s also dangerous. What if these customers had needed to call emergency responders? You guys have much more important things to concentrate on anyway (like your impending bankruptcy after buying up those rural Verizon lines).

Corrections from UTOPIA on the Tremonton Numbers

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Hugh Matheson e-mailed to clarify some of the stats from Tremonton. The close rate is close to 50% – that is that half of homes visited end up taking service. The total take rate is hovering around 20% of all residents right now, still not bad for 10 weeks work. The door-to-door effort is being held up a bit by the inclement weather we’ve had lately. Also: in a lot of cases, folks are either unreceptive to any door-to-door sales or just aren’t home when someone comes by.

Even with numbers revised lower, it shows that an agressive marketing campaign with boots on the ground can do a lot to boost take rates. Maybe we need to get together and do guerilla marketing in a UTOPIA-ready neighborhood?

UTOPIA Article in the DesNews Shows Growth and Goals

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The Deseret News ran a brief article on UTOPIA that, while light on a lot of specifics, includes their current subscriber growth rate and goals for subscriber growth. According to the article, they’re adding 300-400 new subscribers per month and plan to double or triple that number in 2009. I’ve also heard that in Tremonton, their door-to-door campaign resulted in an impressive 50% take rate.

It’s good that UTOPIA has some public goals and accomplishments, but there still needs to be more public disclosure so that we can all evaluate how things are going. Hopefully they’ll be able to show big gains in other areas Real Soon Now(TM).

UTOPIA Prices on the Rise?

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While many cablecos and telcos are holding the line on broadband pricing, UTOPIA may be stepping it up a notch. FuzeCore lists pricing for Internet connections that is more money for less bandwidth than we’re used to getting. XMission lists similar pricing for UTOPIA services in Tremonton, though the prices for other UTOPIA cities is largely unchanged. Neither Nuvont nor Veracity disclose their pricing up-front (at least as far as I can tell).

Commenters who contacted service providers for pricing in Tremonton have gotten quotes of install costs in the $30-60 range. It’s entirely possible that UTOPIA is trying out some new pricing models that build the cost of the install into the monthly fee similar to what cable and phone companies already do. The real question is if pricing will drop once the install is paid for or if customers could choose to pay off the install cost in exchange for a lower monthly fee. I’m also wondering if the pricing in Tremonton will be rolled out to other UTOPIA markets should it prove successful.