Utah: A fiber Utopia | News.blog | CNET News.com: The Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency, or Utopia, has begun construction to lace homes in 14 cities with fiber optic lines.
Speeds will begin at a minimum of 100mbps downstream and upstream. At present most cable/DSL broadband users see speeds of between 1.5 and 3.0 mbps for downloads. This represents a significant speed increase for broadband users.
Of course, as one would suspect, the local Baby Bell Qwest Communications would rather not see this happen. Jim Hu writes, “As part of their public relations campaign, the Bells have consistently sounded off against government-funded competition, while playing up fears that networks going belly-up would mean higher taxes for residents.”
This project would be funded through the issuance of government bonds.
Fiber optic networks and municipal wi-fi should be significant goals for public policy makers and elected officials. Although you will see lots of resistence from the current broadband providers who have little incentive to innovate, we will all be collectively better off with these new technologies in place.