Utah Locals Are Getting Cheap 10 Gbps Fiber Thanks To Local Governments
from the just-build-it-yourself dept
Tired of being underserved and overbilled by shitty regional broadband monopolies, back in 2002 a coalition of local Utah governments formed UTOPIA — (the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency). The inter-local agency collaborative venture then set about building an “open access” fiber network that allows any ISP to then come and compete on the shared network.
As we’ve noted over the years, regional monopolies like Qwest (now Centurylink or Lumen) didn’t much like that. They desperately tried to sue and harass the network out of existence in the early aughts, claiming the concept violated numerous local laws (it didn’t). These efforts failed, in part, because of widespread support among a public extremely tired of being ripped off by shitty monopolies.
Two decades later and the coalition just announced that 18 different ISPs now compete for Utah resident attention over a network that now covers 21 different Utah cities. In many instances, ISPs on the network are offering symmetrical (uncapped) gigabit fiber for as little as $45 a month (plus $30 network connection fee, so $75). Some ISPs are even offering symmetrical 10 Gbps fiber for around $150 a month:
“Sumo Fiber, a veteran member of the UTOPIA Open Access Marketplace, is now offering 10 Gbps symmetrical for $119, plus a $30 UTOPIA Fiber infrastructure fee, bringing the total cost to $149 per month.”
It’s a collaborative hybrid that blurs the line between private companies and government, and it works. And the prices being offered here are significantly less than locals often pay in highly developed tech-centric urban hubs like New York, San Francisco, or Seattle.
Yet giant local ISPs like Comcast and Qwest spent decades trying to either sue this network into oblivion, or using their proxy policy orgs (like the “Utah Taxpayer Association“) to falsely claim this effort would end in chaos and inevitable taxpayer tears. Yet miraculously UTOPIA is profitable, and for the last 15 years, every UTOPIA project has been paid for completely through subscriber revenues.
As other Utah cities have considered following suit, those same local monopolies have created dark money campaigns and even fake consumer groups to lie to locals that such efforts are still inevitable government boondoggles. Such sleazy lobbying campaigns are cheaper than actually competing or building the kind of networks these locals have spent several decades clamoring for.
For years, real world experience and several different studies and reports (including see our Copia study on this concept) have made it clear that open access networks and policies result in faster, better, more affordable broadband access. UTOPIA is proving it at scale, but numerous other municipalities have been following suit with the help of COVID relief and infrastructure bill funding.
Sometimes such networks are owned by local governments. Sometimes they’re community-owned cooperatives. Sometimes they’re the extension of the local city-owned utility. Sometimes they’re built on the back of public/private partnerships.
According to a database of such networks tracked by the Institute For Local Self Reliance (which I have done research and writing work for), there are now 450 municipal broadband networks in the U.S. Since January 1, 2021, at least 47 new networks have come online, with dozens in the planning or pre-construction phases. And this may be an undercount given the FCC’s failure to track them all.
But because big monopolies (and a bunch of Libertarian think tankers with covert financial ties to those same monopolies) didn’t like the idea for ideological or financial reasons, federal and state policymakers have vacillated between demonizing the idea of municipal broadband, or banned it entirely (17 states currently prohibit such networks, and House Republicans attempted a federal ban during COVID).
Again, this could have all been prevented if big ISPs like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, CenturyLink and others had actually delivered the affordable, ultra-fast access Americans have demanded for decades. It could have been avoided if they’d embraced competition. It could have been avoided if they’d properly used the untold billions in taxpayer subsidies they’ve received over the last thirty years to expand access.
Community and municipal broadband sees widespread bipartisan support. It’s an organic, highly local, response to decades of corruption and market failure these companies enabled at every step of the way. Any impact it has on regional telecom monopolies was entirely earned on the back of decades of hubris and greed.
Filed Under: broadband, community broadband, fiber, high speed internet, municipal broadband, open access, telecom, utah, utopia
Comments on “Utah Locals Are Getting Cheap 10 Gbps Fiber Thanks To Local Governments”
Meanwhile AT&T is offering 5 Gbps fiber for $250/mo (plus installation fee up to $99). It may give an insight of the major telco margins…
“It’s a collaborative hybrid that blurs the line between private companies and government, and it works. ”
”’ sounds good, but it’s a vague claim with no hard facts presented to support it.
what’s the true total cost of this service and who actuall pays that full cost ?
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Looks to be $149, at least for symmetrical 10 Gbps fiber.
The customers, given that “for the last 15 years, every UTOPIA project has been paid for completely through subscriber revenues”.
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What are all those blocks of letters you’re stringing together?
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i feel sorry you don’t have basic reading comprehension.
Perhaps you need to go out and touch some grass. Interact with other humans. Learn.
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…enquired the AC of themself.
Just got my fiber connection (at least to my front curb so far) installed in the last couple weeks. Waiting on the rest of the install over the next few months, probably, but Comcast will finally be removed from my life. Thanks, local government!
It pleases me that people in conservative regions of the country are discovering (or rediscovering) that Socialism is actually good, or at least compared to corporate monopolies.
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Ok, Bolshevik.
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“Socialism” doesn’t always mean “The Soviet Union” or “Cuba”. It can also mean “Firefighters”, or “public education”, or “libraries”, or “the post office”, or…
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or National Defense, or any public road. I live in Utah and typically tell people I’m a socialist if politics come up even though I tend to vote for slightly right of center politicians. They get upset sometimes when I tell them that for common goods they probably are socialists as well. Socialism is sometimes the right hammer for right nail, but does nothing good for screws.
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Basically, everything available to the general public that’s paid for by taxes, including the socialized medical care enjoyed in many non-Communist European countries, and repeatedly rejected by McCarthyites to the detriment of all in the United States but the 1%.
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I suggest you pay attention to Iowa next time there are caucuses there. Every Republican running will promise farmers endless subsidies and taxpayer handouts, and the one who promises the most will get the votes.
“Conservatives” across the country love socialism, just not for black people and non-white immigrants.
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Bingo. You nailed it.
'You can't have other options, that's not how the free market's supposed to work!'
Probably the biggest tell of how good community broadband can be is how desperate the major ISPs are to sabotage it every chance they get.
If it wasn’t a serious threat to their monopolies/duopolies then they wouldn’t care nearly as much, and with stats like that I’d say they’ve got good reason to be worried.
I prefer my Comcast service and appreciate the lack of worry that comes with paying a corporation vs. having my local gov’t steal more of my income [i.e., levy taxes] to fund some boondoggle.
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It’s funded by the users, you twit.
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Found the paid shill.
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Or useful idiot, but they’re certainly one of those.
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I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
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Shut up, New Yorker-reading fag.
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Wow! How deep in the closet do you have to be to be to pull that one out from under all the cobwebs?
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I’m guessing it’s somewhere between “they’re finding Christmas presents” and “they’ve been to Narnia”.
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I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me.
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Are you an “independent contractor” or is the call coming from inside the Comcast call center?
I’m not sure what people need less, 10gb or a 150 dollar internet bill.
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My internet bill is nearly that for 300Gbps.
Re: You're right, but you're also missing the point
If you don’t need 10 Gbps (which is most people right now), then you can get less bandwidth for cheaper.
SenaWave, one of the ISPs listed on the UTOPIA site, offers 250 Mbps for $65 and 1Gbps for $70 in supported locations (after factoring in the site’s higher-end estimate of additional monthly fees).
As a Utah resident, and IT worker, I love Utopia and Sumo. Google is assisting in this as well. Utopia has, several times now, installed fiber at businesses I’ve worked for at a fraction of the cost other providers were offering and their service has been rock solid. Customer support has been excellent as well.
3 fiber line threw my town
<3000 people here and we are in the center of 5 other towns in 15 miles in every direction.
And no one wants to Tap those lines.
Its so much fun.
“…New York, San Francisco, or Seattle…”
They are still undergoing the blue state shitification process.
Has Seattle or NY made their own poop maps yet?
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Those were all certainly words.
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Yes, I try to watch my spelling in my quest for pure retardidium. It is indicated that I am very close.
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You are showing great improvement, congratulations!