Utah's Utopia Signs up Dish as ISP Partner Cox May Also Join Effort That Was Supposed to be Dead by Now Friday Mar 09 2012 09:35 EDT To hear the project's opponents tell it, the nation's largest municipal broadband effort, Utah's Utopia, was supposed to be dead by now, crushed under the weight of the inevitable failure that all government-run broadband projects are supposed to succumb to. The project has certainly struggled, in part because several Qwest lawsuits and a screw up with federal loan funding, but Utopia's still around, and their finances have been very slowly improving. One notable shift recently for the effort lately is that they've managed to sign up Dish network as a wholesale partner who'll now be providing ISP services to Utah locals over fiber to the home. Dish's signing may set the path for other national ISPs to jump on board, including Cox Communications: quote: While UTOPIA has had no problems picking up a plethora of commercial operators, the residential options have remained somewhat limited. The addition of a large national provider will no doubt attract attention from other providers, especially as the network expands and creates a greater opportunity to grab new customers. It was rumored that Cox Communications, the largest privately-held cable company in the country, was interested in joining UTOPIA if they thought they could get at least 50,000 new customers out of it.
The fact that Utopia still exists surely upsets the projects opponents, many of whom are political ideologues obsessed in proving government can never work -- or Qwest (now CenturyLink) flacks and fauxcademics interested in smearing the effort so regional incumbents don't have to spend any money on their own networks. There's a vast and literal of army spending millions trying to make this project fail -- so they can then crow -- ignoring their own roles in the collapse -- that such projects always fail.That said, while Utopia's surviving, that's not to say they haven't had constant problems. Any effort (government or private) can be harmed by human incompetence, and to hear locals tell it, UTOPIA has seen plenty of that. Their initial financial projections were total nonsense, and local ISPs have told us more than a few stories of initial incompetence. The project still doesn't expect to break even for a few years, though perhaps some larger private sector ISP involvement can help them ramp up take rates. |
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RUSFrom the article it seems the government's refusal to pay out the full amount of its grant really screwed UTOPIA's short-term finances. In the meantime the government is considering waging yet another war in the middle east. | |
| | jester121 Premium Member join:2003-08-09 Lake Zurich, IL |
Re: RUSUtah is a very red state, why would a Dem administration send a bunch of funding there when there are lots of blue states where the pork might result in campaign contributions and votes? | |
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to sonicmerlin
said by sonicmerlin:. In the meantime the government is considering waging yet another war in the middle east. You are spot on. These retarded shills on here balk at spending a penny domestically for cool things but have no problem with stealing money from poor people here and sending it to rich people overseas. I have noticed this viewpoint becoming more and more prevalent as people wake up. Ron Paul deserves a lot of credit for constantly bringing this to national attention at every debate. | |
| | | elray join:2000-12-16 Santa Monica, CA |
elray
Member
2012-Mar-9 12:39 pm
Re: RUSsaid by DataRiker:said by sonicmerlin:. In the meantime the government is considering waging yet another war in the middle east. You are spot on. These retarded shills on here balk at spending a penny domestically for cool things but have no problem with stealing money from poor people here and sending it to rich people overseas. I have noticed this viewpoint becoming more and more prevalent as people wake up. Ron Paul deserves a lot of credit for constantly bringing this to national attention at every debate. As one often so accused, let me assure you, conservatives have no interest in taxing anyone, especially the poor. Where we differ, is when the tax system is used for wealth redistribution, i.e. "earned income tax credits" and other welfare provisions, which tend to produce a permanent dependency, rather than enable individuals to thrive. I have no objection to spending tax moneys on "cool things", if such expenditures are legal, local, and approved by a super-majority vote of the people who pay the tax, AND we have our fiscal house in order. Deficit spending is viable only for short periods - 4-5 years tops, not decades. | |
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to DataRiker
said by DataRiker:You are spot on. These retarded shills on here balk at spending a penny domestically for cool things but have no problem with stealing money from poor people here and sending it to rich people overseas. The poor pay little to nothing in federal income tax. Most get back more than they paid in, either in cash or in services. | |
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Re: RUSLike so many I am at the bottom of a tax bracket and pay a lot of money to the federal government.
I am by no means rich. Thanks for rhetoric though. | |
| | | | | elray join:2000-12-16 Santa Monica, CA |
elray
Member
2012-Mar-9 7:23 pm
Re: RUSsaid by DataRiker:Like so many I am at the bottom of a tax bracket and pay a lot of money to the federal government.
I am by no means rich. Thanks for rhetoric though. And you are by no means poor. I'd be curious to hear what you consider "a lot". | |
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Re: RUSThe point being federal money that would be spent on the poor is reallocated to the rich in other countries.
Its called "foreign aid" or "war".
But to your misdirected question I pay what I consider a lot of money to the federal government and I consider myself poor as would any normal human being. | |
| | | | | | | elray join:2000-12-16 Santa Monica, CA |
elray
Member
2012-Mar-10 12:30 pm
Re: RUSYou are not poor.
But I concur that recent war expenditures are certain folly.
At the very least, if we as a country agree on foreign interdiction, there should be an accompanying war surtax to fund it, which would provoke more continuing public inquiry. | |
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delusion ftl
Anon
2012-Mar-9 2:46 pm
Utopia's model is a great ideaYou don't build the airport and then also run all the flights. You build the airport and then entice commercial private for profit airlines to offer flights to the area.
They built the fiber, then enticed commercial private for profit isp's to offer service in the area.
What this means is you can choose between low cost budget isp's. You can choose isp's who don't cap or throttle. you can choose one that bundles for the best deal, really anything the market thinks would give them a competitive advantage or is an in demand value add.
The free market competitive forces drive the services over utopia. Cox doesn't provide cable to any of the utopia network footprint. Now they get to compete against Comcast and centurylink (the local incumbents) who also were offered to put their services over utopia, but refused. | |
| KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little Guy Premium Member join:2000-01-17 Tulsa, OK |
KrK
Premium Member
2012-Mar-9 5:16 pm
The Utopia model really is the best system.To have the infrastructure, and then allow all comers to bring their services to customers over that infrastructure, allowing open competition, choice, and service. | |
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A balanced idea.It's time to bring this type of plan nationwide. | |
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BoneheadsI filter the pointless "Accept", "Accept-Language", "Accept-Charset" and "Accept-Encoding" headers in Firefox and that trips their threat management software (the brain-dead Bad Behavior). If they can't even do something as simple as competently run a small website, why would anyone trust them with running something as complicated as an ISP? | |
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John Deem
Anon
2012-Mar-22 2:07 pm
broadband drainIn Davidson, N.C., one-quarter of the municipal budget is going to prop up the cable system. The owner of a median-valued home will see $370 of his or her property taxes go directly to the company. Read more here: » www.lakenormancitizen.co ··· ion.html. | |
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