This Sunday, at 8am, I will be appearing on Chris Vanocur’s show “On the Record” on KTVX, channel 4. The topic will be the use of the Internet in this political season.
Please join me next Tuesday, the 21st in welcoming Senator Jon Tester from Montana for a reception benefiting the Obama Victory Fund.
Be sure to let everyone know how well UTOPIA and iProvo are doing. You should build on successes like this. Next time you run, you can say “hey people. I’m visionary. I supported UTOPIA and iProvo”.
My criticism of the management of iProvo has been there since the start. It never was an open network where any ISP could participate. We tried and they preferred to sell it off in a back-room deal to a provider with very little experience. I don’t doubt it will fail and I place the blame squarely on the individuals and mayor who managed it.
I have been equally critical of the financing model for UTOPIA and its prior management failures.
It isn’t municipal fiber that is to blame, otherwise the countries who support this on a nationwide level would be failing to provide gigabit speeds at under $100. What is to blame is the idea that somehow a government needs to run like a business. The roads and highways have never turned a dime in profit, yet there has been a clear economic benefit. People who don’t believe digital infrastructure is just as important, or economically viable in 2008 have their heads in the sand. I am proud of my record on supporting open municipal fiber networks and I will continue to support them.
So iProvo and UTOPIA would be working if the right people were in charge?
Do the roads and airports work? iProvo has been plagued by incompetence and mismanagement from the beginning to the end. You might want to read my previous blog entry on the subject. UTOPIA has been hindered by repeated baseless lawsuits by Qwest and a dose of mismanagement as well. Although I backed the municipal bonds at the beginning for UTOPIA, I now believe that if a city/state/country wants infrastructure/services/war, they should pay for it. How popular would the Iraq war be if taxpayers had to shoulder the cost as time went on rather than borrowing from our children? Part of the current issue with UTOPIA as it stands now is servicing its massive debt.
If you want to see municipal fiber that works, look at Sweden, South Korea, and Japan. Private competition provides services over government financed nationwide fiber. Sort of like the roads and airports that have served the USA for the past half century.