UTOPIA explains fee hike in Orem. Todd Marriott. Executive Director of UTOPIA.

UTOPIA explains fee hike in Orem

GUEST OPINION

September 08, 2012 12:08 am  •  Todd Marriott

We want to correct some inaccurate reporting in the Herald's Sept. 7 poll article regarding UTOPIA fees.

First, UTOPIA will not be "out of money" at the end of the month. We are funded through bond proceeds and subscriber revenues. Last year's budgeted funds were expected to last through June 30, 2012, but due to prudent management, UTOPIA has operated well past that date using those funds. As part of our standard operating procedure, on an annual basis, our board approves a scheduled drawdown on a pre-approved bond. This allows transparent oversight by the cities that own the network, including Orem.

Second, the article did not correctly identify which customers would be affected by higher fees, nor the benefits they would receive. The increase in service fees affects "legacy" subscribers only; these are subscribers who joined UTOPIA under a different model and were not asked to pay any infrastructure costs to get the fiber optic service to their house. UTOPIA has never increased prices on those customers before, and we held off as long as possible. The majority of legacy customers subscribe to Veracity Networks and XMission and these service providers may opt to pass along some or all of the fee increase to them.

But, at this time, these companies are also significantly increasing speeds for legacy customers, both up and down. For example, these XMission customers will now receive 50 megabits per second down- and up-stream, while Veracity will offer 60 or 100 MBPS up and down, depending on the subscriber's agreement! By contrast, Comcast offers 20 MBPS downstream/4 MBPS upstream for more than $60 a month. The value for money spent on these speeds provided by ISP's using UTOPIA is significant.

Finally, the Herald inaccurately published that UTOPIA's speeds will slow as more people use the network. While this happens with Comcast's and CenturyLink's networks, it does not occur with UTOPIA because each customer has their own piece of fiber connected directly to the home and does not share bandwidth with their neighbors.

• Todd Marriott is Executive Director of UTOPIA.  Todd Marriott. UTOPIA Executive Director. Guest Opinion. Herald Extra.com