John Locke wrote:
The simple fact: Cities evaporate when unable to provide the fundamental infrastructure for business. We live in an information society. Telecommunications bandwidth is the fundamental infrastructure.

Qwest and Comcast Would Not provide what we needed because they couldn't justify the expense. (Maybe because they pay the Qwest CEO Seventeen Million a year.) Hence iProvo.

iProvo and UTOPIA are having start up difficulties - due to obstructive legislation foisted on Utah by Qwest and Comcast. But without the competition of iProvo, I would still be waiting for broadband capacity here in Northeast Provo.

Few Utahns are aware that a second generation internet is being launched this summer. It's called "the Grid" and it's TEN THOUSAND TIMES FASTER than the world wide web. The Grid is a pure data network that runs exclusively on dedicated Fiber Optic Cables; not on a hodge podge of copper wires, cables, and switches designed decades ago to carry phone calls.

iProvo and Utopia are pre-wired to connect our homes and businesses to the coming Ultra-Net. How long will Comcast and Qwest subscribers have to wait for ultra bandwidth? FOR-EV-ER. God bless Provo'S foresight! Give iProvo and UTOPIA time. Do not be penny wise and pound foolish.

Unless you're connecting supercomputers into "metacomputers" that could be remotely controlled, it's going to be several years before you get 'Grid" at home.

'The Grid' Could Soon Make the Internet Obsolete
Monday, April 07, 2008
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,347212,00.html

Although the grid itself is unlikely to be directly available to domestic internet users, many telecoms providers and businesses are already introducing its pioneering technologies.

John Locke wrote:
The simple fact: Cities evaporate when unable to provide the fundamental infrastructure for business. We live in an information society. Telecommunications bandwidth is the fundamental infrastructure.

Qwest and Comcast Would Not provide what we needed because they couldn't justify the expense. (Maybe because they pay the Qwest CEO Seventeen Million a year.) Hence iProvo.

iProvo and UTOPIA are having start up difficulties - due to obstructive legislation foisted on Utah by Qwest and Comcast. But without the competition of iProvo, I would still be waiting for broadband capacity here in Northeast Provo.

Few Utahns are aware that a second generation internet is being launched this summer. It's called "the Grid" and it's TEN THOUSAND TIMES FASTER than the world wide web. The Grid is a pure data network that runs exclusively on dedicated Fiber Optic Cables; not on a hodge podge of copper wires, cables, and switches designed decades ago to carry phone calls.

iProvo and Utopia are pre-wired to connect our homes and businesses to the coming Ultra-Net. How long will Comcast and Qwest subscribers have to wait for ultra bandwidth? FOR-EV-ER. God bless Provo'S foresight! Give iProvo and UTOPIA time. Do not be penny wise and pound foolish.

Are you willing to raise taxes or skim money from the police and fire budgets to cover the losses? Have you considered how much it cost to bring fiber to your home...perhaps that is why the free market has not placed anything there.

The Keeper wrote:
The city has thus far refused to release details of its plan, saying it is a complicated process.

Is it "complicated" because Mayor Billings doesn't have a Bachelor Degree in subject?

HeHeHe!

You are assuming that Mayor Billings or the city even have a plan at this point.

Remember, when the bonding companies refused to make the loans without taxpayer footed guarantees via our sales taxes? That one thing, in and of itself, should have indicated to these bozos that there was more risk involved than the city should be taking on. But, it didn't, obviously.

So now, we have a very expensive pig in a poke, that we will ultimatly likely have to sell for a dime on the dollar - if we are lucky. Once again, our political leaders get to stick it to the taxpayers, and walk away without being held accountable for their empty headedness and responsibile behavior - or lack thereof.

unaffiliated_person wrote:
John Locke wrote:
The simple fact: Cities evaporate when unable to provide the fundamental infrastructure for business. We live in an information society. Telecommunications bandwidth is the fundamental infrastructure.

Qwest and Comcast Would Not provide what we needed because they couldn't justify the expense. (Maybe because they pay the Qwest CEO Seventeen Million a year.) Hence iProvo.

iProvo and UTOPIA are having start up difficulties - due to obstructive legislation foisted on Utah by Qwest and Comcast. But without the competition of iProvo, I would still be waiting for broadband capacity here in Northeast Provo.

Few Utahns are aware that a second generation internet is being launched this summer. It's called "the Grid" and it's TEN THOUSAND TIMES FASTER than the world wide web. The Grid is a pure data network that runs exclusively on dedicated Fiber Optic Cables; not on a hodge podge of copper wires, cables, and switches designed decades ago to carry phone calls.

iProvo and Utopia are pre-wired to connect our homes and businesses to the coming Ultra-Net. How long will Comcast and Qwest subscribers have to wait for ultra bandwidth? FOR-EV-ER. God bless Provo'S foresight! Give iProvo and UTOPIA time. Do not be penny wise and pound foolish.

Are you willing to raise taxes or skim money from the police and fire budgets to cover the losses? Have you considered how much it cost to bring fiber to your home...perhaps that is why the free market has not placed anything there.

This isn't about taking money (that we are already paying) from fire or police. It's about increasing our sales taxes to pay for this lark.

Well done Keeper. Glad to see you are up on the Grid. The blurbs you quoted from Fox News show you know what's happening there. Just as the old DARPA net eventually was commercialized as the www, so will the Grid technology -- given time. And Provo is prewired for the future.

Did I hear someone speak of profits? How much profit has there been in the Central Utah Water Project. Why didn't venture capitalists band together to build THAT? Providing bandwidth is as important to our economic future as providing water. No kidding.

And Word Perfect? I know WP failed because Microsoft sold us buggy source code for Windows. Subsequent Word Perfect software for Windows often crashed. (Everyone soon migrated to MS Word.) I mentioned WP because I wanted readers to get a feel for the human cost of Utah County being left in the technological dust. Other communities are going to bury us if we do not trust the future.



Why would anyone call iProvo a pig in a poke? Thats a pig in a bag the buyer can't look into. The city council that responded to a chamber full of citizens demanding the project be built -- they were inspired, not irresponsible.

Watchdog... watch more. Speak less. We knew exactly what we were getting into including the risks that we might have to subsidize the network like citizens had to subsidize the constuction of the electricity generating plant on Freedom Boulevard.

For those of you who are wondering, make no mistake Provo has been shifting monies out of other city departments in the form of budget cuts and losses of personnel and services for sometime now. If you don't believe that is true, think again. But the bright is when a burglar breaks into your house or your house is on fire you will have a really cool fiber optic line. Talk about penny wise and pound foolish.