[sllug-members]: How to get UTOPIA, was: (Host my own...)

[Doran Barton]

Kyle Waters wrote:
> They're called libertarians.  They don't believe the government should
> do ANYTHING(I'm tempted to go around and unhook their sewer pipes).

That's a rather naive view of libertarians... but considering who said it, I 
guess I shouldn't be surprised. ;-)

I consider myself mostly libertarian and I'm completely in favor of UTOPIA 
because the small amount of government involvement allowing multiple service 
providers to compete is much better for the consumer than having to deal with 
the asinine monopolies of Qwest and Comcast. It's a small but worthwhile 
price to pay for little or no government involvement in the actual content of 
services provided.

Because of my libertarian-leaning beliefs, I feel projects like iProvo and 
other government-as-an-ISP projects are a BadThing(tm).

There are a lot of conservatives in Utah (my dad is one) who feel UTOPIA is 
too much government involvement, but I think they don't understand how 
important the information infrastructure will be in the future.

> This raises an other question I have about UTOPIA.  I heard AT&T had the
> contract to maintain UTOPIA after it was implemented.  Is that a year to
> year contract or is it permanent. Do the individual cities actually own
> the hardware? Also didn't the state stop cities from bonding for
> communications network(these same "libertarians" voted to fund a port
> filter with state money)?

AT&T was originally given the first exclusive service provider contract. I 
don't recall the exact length of time, but AT&T was originally going to be 
the only provider UTOPIA users could use for telephone, video, and Internet 
services for X number of months. Apparently, that changed because XMission 
and MStar were available right off the bat.

All of the hardware belongs to the UTOPIA project of which the cities are 
participating partners.

-- 
Doran L. Barton <fozz at xmission.com> - Linux, Perl, Web, good fun, and more!
  "Product will be hot after heating."
     -- Seen on a bread pudding package