Just thought I'd add a little more info: Utopia and iProvo are both
fiber-to-the-home networks, municipally created and maintained. iProvo is
just in Provo, and Utopia has been adopted by many cities throughout Utah
(including Orem).
Content providers can offer services over the fiber networks. There are
currently two providers that piggy-back on iProvo: MSTAR and Veracity.
Before August there was only HomeNet, which was the first and only
provider for the iProvo pilot program and then into the first few rollout
phases. HomeNet had financial woes and up and left town suddenly around
the beginning of August. Provo city arbitrarily divided the HomeNet
customers between MSTAR and Veracity. The switch caused a good deal of
confusion, but with just about zero interruption to my service. I'm with
Veracity, and I've been pretty impressed with how well they've handled
everything so far.
The providers are each offering three main services (combined in various
packages): cable TV, VOIP phone, and net access. The TV is about what
you'd expect from a cable company with the pleasant addition of video on
demand. The phone service includes free long distance throughout the
States and Canada. And I'm getting 5 Mbs up and down on the net access,
with the option of bumping that to 10 for another $10 a month, I think it
was. They'll give you a static IP for $5 a month, and they don't whine
about running servers from your home box (Bronx cheers to Comcast).
The 3-way package is around $104/month, so pretty sweet for all that.
As for Utopia, I know MSTAR offers the same stuff as on iProvo, but beyond
that I don't know who's doing what.
Brett
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