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17 Utah cities to assess need for fiber-optic networks

UTOPIA study to note interest, costs and sites

A coalition of 17 Utah cities has commissioned a feasibility study to determine interest in, the cost of and optimal locations for municipally owned fiber-optic networks.

By Lois M. Collins
Deseret News staff writer

The cities moving forward with the studies, to be completed by Provo’s DynamicCity MetroNet Advisors, through the coalition, Utah Telecommunications Open Infrastructure Association (UTOPIA), are Brigham City, Cedar City, Cedar Hills, Centerville, Layton, Lindon, Midvale, Murray, Payson, Perry, Orem, Riverton, Roy, South Jordan, Taylorsville, Tremonton and West Valley City.

DynamicCity is a consulting organization that helps municipalities study, implement and manage telecommunications infrastructure. And that’s what’s on the line: whether to build high-speed, fiber optic telecommunications connections that will in time reach every home and business in each of those cities.

The concept of local governments providing infrastructure for high-speed networks has become increasingly popular. But unlike many municipal studies, this undertaking would provide a wholesale network only, with no intention of competing with private industry or becoming service providers. The service provider community could lease capacity and provide services to the customers over the UTOPIA network, said Joel Sybrowsky, executive vice president at Dynamic City.

The services available over the high-speed network could include, for instance, local and long distance dial tone, high speed data and video services like cable television. He said such a network could be used to carry video on demand, distance education, telemedicine applications, video teleconferencing, home monitoring and more.

"The businesses that can be developed would be limited only by imagination and entrepreneurship," Sybrowsky said.
It is in large part an economic development issue for the cities, which benefit when they can provide an excellent quality of life for both residents and business operators.

"A telecommunications system is part of critical infrastructure that communities need to provide to business," he said. "Private industry has not delivered on true broadband affordably to every single residence and business in a community. Some have felt the need to step forward and address those issues."

Coalitions like UTOPIA are forming, in part, for economies of scale — they hope to negotiate lower costs through their sheer bulk. They also hope such a coalition will attract service providers and choices to the larger service area that results.

In the study, DynamicCity will look at two things for each municipality: a residential and business survey to assess the needs and attitudes within each city and a workable network design, which will be created on electronic maps.

Sybrowsky said feasibility is determined by a projection of revenue "determined largely by the survey against the cost to build out, based in part on the network design." They want to know if it’s economically self-sustainable to create such a large-scale network.

UTOPIA plans to issue revenue bonds on behalf of member cities, so at this point there’s no commitment from the cities themselves or taxpayers regarding the bonds.
And that’s a key point: The cities have not committed to build high-speed infrastructure at all. They’ve committed to study the issue.

"The feasibility study data will give each member city the specific cost, revenue projections and economic model that will enable them to ultimately make the decision of whether or not to proceed with the actual build-out of a MetroNet within their respective city limits," said Paul Morris, executive director of UTOPIA, in announcing the study.
It also will answer questions about how each city would be connected with others.

Sometime next year, UTOPIA will decide whether or not to build, based on the feasibility studies. Cost of the studies will be divided among the cities, based on their populations.
The studies are slated for completion by April 2003.

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