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limpelephant
join:2009-05-27
| Utopia dead?
When is Utah going to grow a pair and start allowing the Utopia lines light up? I want service in South Ogden. There isn"t any!! I'm sure the fiber lines are there, or very close, and yet there is no service. The closest place with service is Layton and the footprint is the size of a Bic Pen. Utopia cannot sit there and say, we CAN service 50,000 people but only 3,000 are using it, let's just sit and wait for more customers in our 3 blocks of ACTIVE SERVICE! I don't know if I'm more mad at Qwest and their lawsuits to keep cities from being able to do their own thing or if I'm pissed at Utopia for being such babies in their business plan | |
JesseHarris
join:2008-07-30
Sandy, UT
| Given how slow-moving UTOPIA has been and how much the incumbent providers stink, I'm empathetic to your anger. However, I think you've missed the mark on many counts.
First off, South Ogden is not a UTOPIA member city, either pledging or non-pledging. The city has made no financial commitment to pay for installing UTOPIA nor has it granted permission to build in the city. If you have a problem with that, take it up with the city council, not UTOPIA. I'd be happy to provide assistance including hooking you up with other South Ogden residents who would like to see UTOPIA in the city.
Secondly, yes, the footprint in Layton is rather small right now. That's because UTOPIA hit hard financial times and has had to pick and choose where to install lines. Their main concerns have been to complete partially-built footprints and build in areas with the greatest demand. That's good use of their limited resources. Once those footprints generate enough income to pay the bond, they'll use the difference to complete build-outs in pledging cities, then in non-pledging cities.
That brings me to my third point. If you want service, you can either 1) move to an existing footprint, 2) wait for UTOPIA to have enough money to build in a planned footprint (which could be decades), 3) hit up your city council to get them to become a member city, or 4) pony up the money required to do the installation. UTOPIA is willing to work with Special Assessment Areas to install service if you can get enough of your neighbors together to agree to foot the bill.
I've been following and advocating for UTOPIA at FreeUTOPIA.org for nearly 3 years now, and I can say with confidence that reports of its death are greatly exaggerated.
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Jesse Harris
Chairman, UTOPIA Citizens Advisory Network
»www.freeutopia.org/ | |
ccoggle
join:2001-08-06
Salt Lake City, UT
| Howdy Jesse,
Utopia really isn't on the right track. I apologize if I'm high jacking this article but I have to agree with the OP.
Even in the places they do have service its near impossible to tell exactly where its deployed and where its not. I'm quite literally in the process of trying to find a house to buy and I would LOVE to buy inside of the Utopia Footprint in West Valley. I tried to find a map or atleast an 'outline' of areas where they have it/looking to deploy and no one can even provide me with that.
What kind of ISP are they running where they can't even give you an 'idea' of areas where they are deployed? | |
JesseHarris
join:2008-07-30
Sandy, UT
| "Not on the right track" and "dead" are very different things. The original post also contained a number of factual errors. (For instance, UTOPIA can service around 80,000 addresses, not 50,000, and has at least 8,000 subscribers, not 3,000). Most of it is basic fact-checking kind of stuff.
I've taken UTOPIA to task for spending over a year working on their service-checking tool with nothing to show for it. Right now, you can submit your address and contact info on their website to see if service is available at a particular address. As far as WVC goes, the footprint is very small and it's going to be a while before service is deployed any further. WVC has a demographic that, as a whole, isn't the most likely to buy service and I've gathered that UTOPIA has placed it near the back of the line as a result. Your best bet is to get a SAA together with your neighbors to pay for the installation costs.
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Jesse Harris
Chairman, UTOPIA Citizens Advisory Network
»www.freeutopia.org/ | |
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