Last night I took the time to attend the Orem City Meeting in which they were to vote on the matter of approving the refinance for UTOPIA.

For those who want the quick and dirty, no decision was made except to get more information and convene with more UTOPIA Representatives on May 2nd.

No for the whole story proceed...

I arrived at the Orem City Building a little after 6PM and sat at the back of the meeting area waiting for the UTOPIA portion which was "scheduled" for 6:30PM.

After a long talk about the speed limit on Sand Hill Rd we got into the main matter at hand, for me at least.

The Utopia representative for the Orem meeting was David Shaw, who is the primary legal counsel for Utopia as far as I understand. He had a power point presentation, which was prepared for all the cities. He said some cities had requested specific information so they had tried to include that information in the prepared presentation for all the cities.

Information from the presentation:
- 7250 subscribers (UPDATE: It was mentioned that Orem's take rate is about or above 3000)
- 42799 addresses passed
- 28k "orderable"
- .05% Churn, very low

He talked about the RUS Issues they had. Successfull RUS city example, Lindon, which is almost completely built out. Then other RUS cities where RUS Funding had actually been approved, and not delivered. Approximately 18 months of setbacks due to RUS issues.

They have yet to touch tax money in any way, shape, or form, and of course the "plan", is that they will never have to.

The primary objectives for the Utopia network:
- Open network
- Private Providers
- Standards Based - this is very important
- Economic Development
- Accalerate Growth
- Reduce Risk to Cities

Recommendations are of course for refinancing, and their latest independant study shows their costs are inline with best practices.

The Benefits of the Utopia Network:
- Low Monthly Fees
- Increase In Property Values
- Superior Services
- Choice
- Future Proof

The Proposal is to refinance the BoA, RUS, and Outstanding Balances, and additional funding to move forward with construction.

There were LOTS of questions by the City Council and the Mayor, and I couldn't keep up with all of them and the margins on the agenda were hard to keep track of it all for notes.

They mostly were focusing on the worst case scenario, and what that would be.

I think they generally came to an agreement that the risk and potential outcome is about the same saying no to refinance, or saying yes to refinance, as a worst outcome. This says to me that saying Yes is the only logical choice. If saying no now is the same as saying yes and having the worst case scenario realized, then you may as well say Yes and hope for something better. If you just say no because of what MIGHT happen then that's just nonsense.

After long Questions and Answers with the Utopia representative and the City Council we had a 10 Minute recess and then public could voice opinions.

Don't quote me on this but I'd say we had a slightly higher Pro Utopia stance on citizen speakers, than Negative responses.

Most of the negative remarks came from elderly, who could stand to be educated about telemedicine and how these technologies can benefit them. I understand many of them don't know what a Megabit is and they don't care. However, I do believe if you put it into a light they can relate to you may be able to sway their stance.

Most of the positive remarks came from a "younger" generation, and almost all were in some technology job. Utah has a large market for technology business, which is good for bringing new businesses here. Not only because we have a tech savvy work force, but because things like Utopia exist for both the use of the business and the home owner. Many people expressed their ability to work from home with the benefits of their Utopia connection, things that aren't possible with incumbent providers and their technology.

We did have a QWest speaker as well, he claimed to be the regional sales manager or something for Utah, and other surrounding states. He obviously had a prepared speech, written by some speech writer with QWest. He had a hard time reading it, stumbled over every few words, and sounded sort of like a machine spewing forth whatever it was told. He talked about the proposed FTTN project they recently announced. So conveniently announced near these city meetings. He talked about Utopia failing in the private sector and talked about the negative press both Utopia and iProvo have gotten.

It is a personal suspision of mine that QWest and / or Comcast are paying off local media to slant articles and generate bad public opinion for these forward thinking ventures.

Since I have a hard time with public speaking, and most of my comments had been made by other pro-Utopia attendees, I remained seated. I did sit behind a Sys Admin from Omniture and next to a nice Intern from the Deseret News. During the recess we answered questions and helped shed some light on the lack of education she, and most utah residents, have about the Utopia project. I hope that with this positive education she may have some positive influence on the articles coming out of the Deseret News.

However, I highly doubt it.

A few more things. I mentioned earlier that the network being a standards based network is important. Well what does this mean? It means that in the world of technology standards for the way certain things should work have been developed. Such as the wireless card you have in your laptop. 802.11a,b,g and now n. These are all standards so that any hardware manufacturer who follows these standards can communicate with any other who has also follow these standards.

This is what makes it possible for you to have an Intel Wireless card built into your laptop, and a LinkSys wireless router. They are standards based and thus know how to communicate.

So what would a non-standards based network be? Well from what I understand most GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Networks) are not standards based. A very good example of this is Verizon's FIOS. They have to purchase the same manufacturer for all hardware so they know how to talk to each other. If at any time the company making that hardware raised their prices they would, to a certain extent, be stuck.

Both the Utopia and iProvo networks deploy standards based active ethernet networks. Which means if they are free to choose from among any hardware vendor who meets their needs.

Of course I may be a little off on some of that, so if I am, tell me so, and I'll admit it.

FINALLY.

All in all I would say it was a good meeting, though very long. I didn't get home until almost 10:30. The City Council and the Mayor are very intelligent, asking good questions, and trying to work it all out. Mr. Shaw was also very knowledgeable about UTOPIA and could answer almost all their questions, but those he couldn't he stated so and said he would get the info for them.

I know it's a big decision for them to make, and not one to be made lightly. However I am all for it, and hope they come to the same conclusion.

UPDATE: I forgot to add this in.

After the meeting I spoke with Mr. Shaw about the rumors of potential legal issues with Utopia doing mass advertising. He said the law only says they cannot offer retail services. There is nothing preventing advertising of any kind.

He also said that with some of these cities that are mostly finished way up North a simple tabling at a city fair or something would go a long way to educate residents and could pull in much needs subscribers to those areas.

Finally he said that anyone in other member cities who have yet to have their meeting please attend, state your opinion, hopefully FOR, and be proactive.