In retrospect the idealistic launch of the city-owned
fiber network a decade ago was admirable if freighted. The ideal was futuristic—a community in which
every resident could opt for access to a super-fast network by which to be
informed of matters large and small, in-the-city and out, and, in turn, to
inform the city’s government about issues of concern. Such ease and extension of high-speed
interactivity seemed to promise new styles of citizenship and levels of civic
awareness that could be transformative.
The network’s launch was not decided by popular
ballot. Instead it took life by fiat and
a $39M bond issue. Optimism ran high that its popularity would assure repayment
of the bond and then some, providing an appreciable, ongoing revenue source for
the municipal budget. After all, what
loyal Provo resident wouldn’t pay for phone, internet, and television access
from the city’s own service?
Without mentioning names, the number of those who didn’t
was legion. Some carped that the
city-as—nonprofit-corporation competing with the for-profit variety was
unfair. Others worried that the quality
of customer service would be sub-par.
The state legislature weighed in on the former matter, the market on the
latter.
The fate of the network in the interim has been checkered
at best. In and out of the hands of
private owners, bedeviled by lapses of service, subscription, and marketing,
last year the network landed back in the city’s lap as its owner, this time
legally labeled a public utility and thus eligible for fees. They first appeared on utility bills last
fall, labeled “Telecom,” which is short for “Learning our lesson the hard way
and now having to finish paying off the bond” fee.
When the fiber network initially was installed, something
momentous was taking shape in Silicon Valley.
Google came into being with its corporate leitmotif of “faster” and
motto of “do no harm.” Who knew the
now-storied internet behemoth eventually would find its way to Provo? Answer: The city’s fiber network was the
charm. When Google came calling, the
municipal administration rightly was ravished.
The details were hush-hush at the suitor’s insistence, but the marriage
was announced as “epic” and brought overnight celebrity to our fair city.
Sold for a dollar, the network will receive a deserved
and costly remake. Finally it will
become available to every residence and on terms that can be described as
generous indeed. What it will assure is
high-speed access under every residential roof, and for an added fee,
dazzlingly high-speed. Provo has become
certifiedly faster. A brave new world
awaits it.
In recognition of this epochal event, I offer the
following lines:
Faster Provo
The fibers are coming!
Sure
enough, they reached to our neighborhood.
The
cables that carried them were unassuming—
No
bright colors, no transparency,
No
outer emanation to signal the inner aura.
Then
came the “drop”,
And
we became a fibered family.
iProvo
was now available, if shaky,
Then later
reincarnated--
Nuvont,
Veracity, iProvo anew.
The
fiber had a way of turning deep red.
I
was there when the mayor
Announced,
er, um, a bailout—
Nested
there in the utility bill,
Hardly
welcome—the dues on integrity.
We
are a debt-averse people.
Searches
for buyers languished.
How
much for a fast-aging system?
Nada. Rebonding?
No thanks.
Where
was rescue?
The
system savior entered epically.
With
utmost silence at first, then—
Hurrah! No turning off the light.
Instead,
our family’s drop promises added instantaneity,
Google-goosed. Faster and faster.
Hal Miller
Provo City Municipal Council Member
May 2013
Related Reading
Carr, N. (2011). The
shallows: What the internet is doing to
our brains. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.
Gleick, J. (2000). Faster.
Boston, MA: Little, Brown.
Mayer-Schonberger, V. & Cukier, K. (2013). Big data: A revolution that will reshape how
we live, work and think.
Boston, MA: Eamon Dolan/Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt.
Schmidt, E., & Cohen, J. (2013). The new digital age: Reshaping the future of people, nations and
business. New York, NY:
Knopf.
