Chris Carey wrote:
The controversial broadband network owned by Provo City has been sold.
iProvo had lost millions of dollars in recent years. So what does that
mean to customers and taxpayers?
iProvo brought an infrastructure of fiber optic and high-speed
Internet, phone and TV to Provo residents.
Now Provo City is selling the entire system to a private company, and
city officials say they will recoup the losses the system has had in
recent years.
The announcement came today as Provo Mayor Lewis Billings announced
his proposed budget for the city.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=3244021
Wow. I must say that I am a little surprised by this move by the City of
Provo. Not necessarily that they are taking such an action. But by the
fact that it was not brought up before and that the city did not take
bids for the network before a deal has been made.
I can see some benefits and some down sides to this move. One thing that
I am willing to admit is that the city has not exactly done a great job
of managing a network like this, from a business perspective. So,
getting control of the network to a private company might yield some
benefits in this area. Assuming that Broadweave networks knows how to do so.
One big downside I see though is that a private company would have
control over the traffic and network service providers on the network.
My biggest concern would be if Broadweave starts pushing providers off
the network and does not let other future providers in. Granted, MStar
and Veracity aren't the greatest providers in the world but they are
better than some. There might be some restrictions put into the purchase
contract that would prevent Broadweave from doing something like that.
And it does appear from their website that they are a network operator
and not a service provider.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the network and what the
terms of the purchase contract are. Anyways. There are my few remarks
about it.
Mike
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