Monday, November 17, 2003
Things I Never Expected to Say
Data infrastructure "is not a nicety,'' said Paul T. Morris, executive director for the project, which he has named Utopia, a stylized acronym for the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency. "It's an essential economic growth issue."
GO UTAH!. Wow, okay, nothing against Utah, but I never expected those words to come out of my mouth. But heres the gist. Comcast, Qwest, and other commercial telecommunication entities are whining that some city governments in Utah have band together to get financing for a project called, Utopia. The goal of the project is to provide access to high-speed data infrastructure to all individuals in businesses within the participating cities.
The localities involve argue, “...that reliable access to high-speed data is so important to their goals of improving education and advancing economic growth that the project should be seen as no more controversial than the traditional public role in building roads, bridges, sewers and schools - as well as electric power systems, which are often municipally owned in the Western United States.” I for one can’t disagree. I think its a scary thought for the companies involved, and even for the individuals it will affect, but reliable access to data is of growing importance in everything from educations, to elections, to civic participation. All arguments of free markets aside, I believe certain services must be seen as public services. I include electric, gas, waste removal, roads, bridges, education, telecommunications, and government services as among them. Now I do believe there are a number of ways that those services can be provided, and often even though they are base need services, some level of free market comes into play�hence government contracts, etc.
But I believe the days of seeing telecommunications as a luxury are over. There is little to no civic participation without the telecommunications industry these days, and that includes access to digital infrastructure and digital data. A number of corporations have had the opportunity to make steps, leaps, and other efforts to provide fiber. But almost all past efforts have eschewed the need to provide fiber connections to the home. They’ve all considered it too much of a luxury. I think that stand has contribute to the current failure of almost all past fiber projects.
Now, Utah, is taking a stand. They are saying for our kids, for our citizens, for our business, for our growth, for our future, a single, compatible digital infrastructure that is high-speed, IS NECESSARY. They’ve also decided that investing the money upfront to meet the needs of later generations is better than having to invest year, after year, after year in costly infrastructure modifications.
Now Comcast and Qwest hope to take them to task over this. I particular love the quote, ‘The speeds to be provided “are way more than what most consumers need in their home,” Mr. Fenn said, adding, “Why provide a Rolls-Royce when a Chevrolet will do?” Yes, indeed why buy a Rolls-Royce, when we can give you a Chevy. Its an interesting quasi-science, knowing when to spend more to save more. It’s something that we Americans haven’t totally gotten our minds around. If its still arguable at the purchasing toliet paper level, then lord knows the conflict at the spend multiple millions of dollars level.
So here’s a quick financial insight, between Qwest and Comcast, they expect to spend $450 million within the next year to upgrade current cable and copper infrastructure to handle data transmits at 3Mbps. This is an upgrade investment, on both their parts, and only one of such that will need to occur during the next say 5-10years. They expect their investmet will quell current consumer need to a manageable level, and I’m certain they hope to harnass or reign in that need as much as possible.
Now the Utah city collaborative project, Utopia, will cost $470 million. It will provide fiber to the home, and data transmission rates of over 100Mbps, arguablly up to 1000Mbps. Now that’s a lot of room for growth. In fact that’s an amazing amount of room for growth. Let us assume that your average Jane & Joe, have absolutely no more need than what Qwest and Comcast predict. With this assumption, for the next 30 odd years, consumption could grow, either through more educational and governement outlets, more businesses, and or population growth, and the Utopia infrastructure while requiring maintenance, would require few, if any upgrades (and I calculated using the lowest estimated transmission rates).
What this means, at least in my mind is that the Utopia project is a far better investment than the Comcast/Qwest upgrades, you’d think Comcast and Qwest would spend more time in negotiating the ability to use the proposed infrastructure for their own commercial growth, by investing in its development, than crying fowl play.
Read more at:
New York Times
Slashdot
Utopia Blueprint
Footnotes
Other Details
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