Monday, March 10, 2003

Clearfield Voices UTOPIA Concerns From the Standard Examiner: Mayor Tom Waggoner (Clearfield, Utah) said the City Council is supportive of participation in the Utah Telecommunications Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA) project, but he said the project hasn"t been included in the budget process for 2003-2004, due to fiscal concerns. The first step would be to fund study of the issue. The mayor did not rule out possible consideration of that study in the future. UTOPIA is a telecommunications infrastructure that would link homes and businesses throughout Utah, thus providing access to voice, video and data service. In the UTOPIA system, the fiber lines would be leased to private businesses for voice, video or data services to participating households in the network. According to the article (requires free registration), the cost of installing the system in the 18 municipalities who have signed up thus far would be $300 million.  Clearfield and two of its neighbors (Layton and Roy) are among the 18, but with the difficulty that cities are having fiscally, it may be a slow road to China. 6:13:57 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 David Fletcher.