Provo’s “UTOPIA”
I mentioned UTOPIA (the plan to wire homes in 18 Utah cities with fiber optics) in this post. Here is another story on this issue and information from iProvo on their service.
UPDATE:
Dan stuck a link to this article in my comments. It is an excellent commentary on the issue of information infrastructure as a municipal service.
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I think these plans are flawed and a waste of money. Any time a politician talks about “investment,” especially for the future, I am wary. This time, its easy to see the flaws. They say that those who forget the past are bound to repeat it. If we think back a mere 5 years ago, putting fiber in the ground was all the rage. The roads in DC and other large cities were ripped up so that people could lay fiber all over the place. We were told that businesses would benefit because they would have tons of bandwidth to do things like video conferencing and collaboration. It was the beginning of a bold new virtual world, or so we were told.
Now almost all of the fiber in cities is unused. The reason is that there isn’t killer-app to utilize all that bandwidth. The killer-app that uses the most bandwidth is KaZaA and other file trading programs. The killer-apps on the internet that people use for legitimate uses are still email and instant messaging–two low bandwidth programs. My point is that there aren’t any programs that need this kind of bandwidth. Cable internet or DSL can supply the bandwidth almost any individual is willing to pay for.
That’s the point really–Provo’s forward looking and inspired politicians think they know what people are willing to pay for. I’m very concerned when politicians talk about future “investment.” Politicians like these type of investments because they trade today’s benefits for costs down the road, when not enough people sign up. Future politicians will have to make the tough decisions while today’s politicians get the advantages. But I don’t necessary think this politician dynamic is at work in Provo—it could be something more nefarious—I think Provo’s politicians think they are inspired. Their “inspiration” leads them to believe this fiber network will work, even when there is no need or use for the bandwidth.
The problem with this plan is that there is not enough demand for ultra-high speed internet. If there were, private companies would be laying fiber, or the cable company would be laying fiber. The reason that there is not enough demand for it is because we don’t have the applications that demand this kind of bandwidth. Other than local services like possibly video on demand, how are people going to use this bandwidth? What websites are people going to visit that utilizes this much bandwidth? What are people going to do on the internet to use this bandwidth? The answer is, nothing that can’t be done with cable or DSL.
Comment by Daniel — November 28, 2003 @ 12:11 pm
I think Dan is mostly right. I really liked the portion of his comment about Utah politicians who think they are inspired. Sadly, that isn’t so unusual in Utah.
I do think applications that take advantage of high levels of bandwidth aren’t that far off. iProvo’s service delivers digital cable, telecommunications services, and broadband internet cheaply. It does appear to be making use of the large level of bandwidth it makes available.
The people behind this don’t appear to have considered what will happen when other better methods of providing huge bandwidth are available in the next few years (especially wireless methods). UTOPIA and iProvo, like many other victims of a rapidly developing technical economy, could be outdated before they have paid for themselves. Then the people left holding the bag will be taxpayers.
I’d be a much bigger fan of this whole thing if a private entity had been willing to take the risks rather than municipalities. Obviously the risks were great enough that no private financing was available so government stepped in. That’s scary.
Comment by Jeremy — November 28, 2003 @ 12:48 pm
I’m also skeptical of any service, especially a government service that resorts to lies to sell its product. iProvo says that “iProvo offers data transfer speeds up to 100x faster (upload/download) than cable modems.” While this is a true statement on its face, it is throughly misleading. Just below statement it gives the prices of internet access. The fastest speed available is only 1Mbps-3Mpbs, the same as you can get from a cable modem.
So while iProvo could deliever “transfer speeds up to 100x faste than cable modems,” they don’t. And governments shouldn’t be in the business of misleading citizens.
What I really suspect is going on is that the politicians promoting this don’t understand the technology, or they have been hoodwinked by their high-paid fiber optics consultants.
Comment by Daniel — November 28, 2003 @ 1:54 pm
Here are some comments on iProvo. http://comment.cio.com/soundoff/112003.html
Comment by Daniel — November 28, 2003 @ 1:56 pm
While I am not sure that the government should be involved with the implementation of high speed internet, I can see that the U.S. is falling far behind the rest of the world in the communication areas. In Japan a 100 mbit connection costs $40. Those who are not in the practice of using the internet may not find this useful but I for one could use almost all of that bandwidth. instead I pay the same amount of money for a 640k connection that doesn’t provide the bandwidth I need. The people taht say we don’t need the bandwidth are the same ones that said we wouldn’t ever need more than 640k of memory.
Comment by lukior — January 19, 2004 @ 3:46 pm