JBear
join:2005-02-24
canada | reply to wifi4milez
Re: Can they sustain it UTOPIA?
"Created by a collaboration of cities in Utah, UTOPIA stands for Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency. This open fiber network links multiple cities and fosters competition among communication service providers who offer Internet, television, telephone and other services, giving customers the freedom to choose their own service providers, the best prices, and absolutely the best service."
Was it successful? I am really hoping it is because it seems like such a great idea. |
| reply to JBear
They have successful deployments but their financial picture isn't as good as they originally estimated. Cities may end up having to pay debt service on the bond payments where in the beginning they were hoping the network could pay for itself. Part of the problem was the bureaucracy of the federal RDA funding, another part was the dirty tactics of Qwest and Comcast and lawsuits trying to hold it up, another part is incumbent telcom lobbyists that keep pushing laws in the state to hamper the network, and finally, it was managed well from the start. It's not a failure yet--many cities have 30/30 connections up and running for about 50,000 businesses and residents, but this is still short of the goal of over 100k and it is over-budget. Still, there are signs that it has helped the economic development in those cities and even though cities may end up paying debt service, I don't think you can say it's a total loss, unless you are a competing wireless company or incumbent who is eager to write the whole thing off as nothing but a failure. More info at a great website, www.freeutopia.org |
