[1st-mile-nm] UTOPIA: 2021 Update

[Richard Lowenberg]

A just published article by Broadband Breakfast editor and publisher, 
Drew Clark

https://mailchi.mp/broadbandcensus/broadband-maps-from-providers-need-to-be-checked-with-data-from-users-4744356

August 6, 2021— This week, another city along the Wasatch Front in Utah 
joined UTOPIA Fiber’s gigabit-capable broadband network with the 
announcement that work has officially begun in Pleasant Grove City, 
Utah.

What started out as The Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure 
Agency in 2004 has now become one of the most promising success stories 
for the open access model in the industry. The original 11 cities that 
teamed together to form the inter-local entity are part of a group of 16 
municipalities that enjoy fiber-to-the-premises service. In short, the 
region in which UTOPIA Fiber operates and is available includes more 
than 100,000 consumers.

The network expansion in Pleasant Grove – roughly half-way between Provo 
and the fast-growing Lehi tech hub on the edge of Utah County – was 
unanimously agreed to by the city council in April of 2021. All 38,000 
of the city’s residents will ultimately get access.

Pleasant Grove Mayor Guy Fugal said that residents have been 
dissatisfied with their current service for some time now. “Although 
Pleasant Grove City’s residents are technically ‘served’ by the cable 
company, community members have been complaining loudly about slow and 
unreliable internet service,” he said in an interview with Utah 
Business, “UTOPIA Fiber is here with a proven track record and a loyal 
customer base. Most importantly, they have been consistently hitting 
their revenue marks.”

Indeed, UTOPIA Fiber has a history of customer satisfaction. In December 
of 2021, the company concluded a fiber-to-the-home deployment in West 
Point, Utah, for $7.2 million after just 15 months of work. And in 
August 2020, Clearfield, Utah, said it would spend $13.8 million to 
bring fiber to its 32,000 residents via UTOPIA’s open access model.

It is not an exaggeration to say that, in the United States, it is 
UTOPIA Fiber that has pioneered the open access model for the rest of 
the private and public sector entities in the industry.

During the Fiber Broadband Association’s Fiber Connect 2021, UTOPIA 
Fiber CEO Roger Timmerman explained that while the open access model was 
slow to catch on, many in this country are taking a second look.

Some communities seeking to adopt the open access model promote it as a 
means to improve broadband speeds and decrease consumer costs. That’s 
true, Timmerman said. But that vision is too narrow and falls short of 
the potential it has to offer.

Open access offers greater innovation and customer service -- and 
minimizes other internet conflicts. “In our regions, throttling is a 
non-issue,” he said. ”Our model offers a permanent solution to the 
problems surrounding net neutrality.”

The goal of open access should never be to simply supplant existing 
telco or cable monopolies with a fiber monopoly. Rather, UTOPIA FIber’s 
model is designed to incentivize competition between providers, allowing 
them to offer superior service to consumers.

More than a dozen service providers on the UTOPIA Fiber network offer 10 
Gigabit per second (Gbps) symmetrical broadband for residential areas 
and 100 Gbps for commercial areas. Its most affordable residential 
package starts at 250 Megabits per second (Mbps) x 250 Mbps for $65 per 
month. That is a far cry from the industry standard that most customers 
typically have access to.

It’s no surprise that others are taking notice of their success. While 
UTOPIA Fiber struggled for many years to grow and finance the networks, 
in February UTOPIA Fiber raised more than $52 million,its largest round 
of funding to date. During the pandemic, UTOPIA raised more than $100 
million to build out and improve their network.

It's an example that many others have been and will continue to follow 
more closely.


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Richard Lowenberg, Executive Director
1st-Mile Institute     505-603-5200
Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504,
rl at 1st-mile.org     www.1st-mile.org
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