While I totally agree that Qwest and Comcast were never going to ride Utopia, I
debated Pete Ashdown on KUER about this very issue. He was constantly claiming
that if you build it they will come.
He tried to liken Utopia to the airports. We only need one and if everyone
uses it then it pays for itself.
Of course airports receive huge amounts of federal money. Most do not stand on
their own.
From: Roger Timmerman
Sent: Friday, October 28, 2016 3:38 PM
To: af@afmug.com
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Ammon City fiber
A couple of comments below from my perspective...
-Roger
On Fri, Oct 28, 2016 at 2:17 PM, <fiber...@mail.com> wrote:
Chuck wrote:
> They honestly expected Qwest and Comcast to ride their network.
What alternate reality do these people live in?
That was never likely to happen because they are local infrastructure
incumbents, although we did have AT&T for a while, and now have Windstream, so
it is possible to attract national players if it is built as a carrier-class
network with good SLAs and they don't have a strong infrastructure presence in
the area that it would compete with. AT&T is non-existent and Windstream has a
very limited presence in Utah so it doesn't threaten themselves in any way to
ride UTOPIA.
> I personally am philosophically opposed to governments providing goods or
> services that private companies can do. Obviously streets are better done
> by government. Arguably water and sewer. I have lived in cities with two
> power companies. But all the rest should be done by commercial providers.
Why do you draw the line at the utilities and the infrastructure you
listed? What makes them so special?
A lot of philosophical differences here. Every day fiber infrastructure looks
more and more like water, sewer, power, roads, and other government provided
services. I believe we will see far more government involvement in providing
fiber infrastructure in the future because private companies are actually , but
I understand why those who stand to lose the most would disagree.
> More importantly government should never compete with businesses.
> They have many unfair advantages.
What unfair advantages do you feel they have?
Government businesses have to pay off debt, make payments in lieu of taxes
and absorb losses like everybody else.
Government agencies benefit from tax exemption, bonding ability, and
taxing/assessment authority unlink private companies. I can see why people
feel like government has unfair advantages. However, at least in the example
of UTOPIA, you can argue that because it is wholesale-only, it doesn't actually
compete with anyone because the system is made available to any private company
and doesn't provide services directly to the end-users.
Jared
