[sllug-members]: [sllug-members] UTOPIA Project in the [bad] news

[Anthony S Naef]

What, Media biased against UTOPIA? Nah, when pigs fly... ;)

Media is quite biased against UTOPIA. Back in 2004, KSL had an editorial 
piece claiming that it was a bad idea and that they should wait for 
"better" technology. I was one of five respondents that had a clear 
rebuttal of KSL's editorial comments posted, and snippets of mine and four 
other rebuttals did get aired, but most people would miss that follow-up 
editorial piece or not look up the five chosen full responses posted on 
KSL's web site countering the original editorial piece's lame reasoning.

My brother, who lives in Midvale, is right now very disappointed that he 
(as yet) cannot get UTOPIA. He really wants to ditch the second phone line 
and modem thing, but apparently, UTOPIA still hasn't reached his 
neighborhood yet. They've been advertising for well over a year, but... 
Bummer.

His present broadband evil stopgap choices are: Cable, with their script 
monkey support/unpublished download caps, or DSL with Qwerst. He still has 
a bad taste in his mouth from paying more than $100 to have static in his 
phone line fixed, only to have the problem ignored. He was at that time 
doing the COLEC thing (I would have predicted his nightmare had he bothered 
to ask), and finger pointing was done all around. Funny, but after having 
switched back to Qwerst for phone service, they were "magically" able to 
find the "grounding" issue and fixed the phone line.

Alas, I'm stuck in Taylorsville, and have no hope for decent broadband, 
otherwise, I would already be there if I could.

As it is, I only have bad or worse choices. I refuse to give the cable 
company a dime on principle (50+ channels of TV dreck, and oh, just ask my 
Dad about the fabulous  quality cable phone service through Comcast), and 
am forced to do POTS/DSL since there is no other reasonable alternative.

The real problem is that most people are both non tech savvy, and won't ask 
or take good tech advice from those of us who know the facts. They would 
rather listen to slick advertising and treat it like gospel truth. 
Unfortunate, but often true.

OK, off my soap box now...

Tony Naef.