In the Spotlight: DynamicCity's Ben Gould

Municipalities mulling their own fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) initiatives have long been watching Utah’s multi-city open-access muni-FTTP project, dubbed Utopia. Some have even put their own plans on hold in favor of waiting to see how efforts like Utopia turn out. A told-you-so moment for Utopia will probably come within a year, says Ben Gould, chief marketing officer for DynamicCity, the consultants guiding Utopia. Gould won’t say how many other muni customers Utopia has in its pipeline (but admits they include multi-city projects), but he was able to provide an update on the project and its future.

On UTOPIA: We’ve passed roughly 6000 homes with fiber now. Of those, there’s 1,000 homes marketable today. In another month, there will be another 1000, and it will grow. By the end of the year, we’ll be past 50,000 homes. We’ve been in our test phase for data, and it’s been going very well. We’re doing a pre-market with our service providers. They’re offering data first. It’ll go data, then voice, then video. The initial offering from MStar, the first service provider marketing the service, is 10 Mb/s for $39.95. They’ll be subsequently offering 50-Mb/s and 100-Mb/s packages. They haven’t announced the prices on those yet. The 100 Mb/s will be less than $100, which is fantastic. Those offerings are all symmetrical. We’re in a couple cities now. Well be in four or five cities by the end of the year. It’s a 3 ½- to 4-year project. We’re guessing we’re 3 to 3 ½ years out from being completed in the initial cities—the initial 150,000 to 160,000-some odd businesses and homes. Other cities are wanting to join as we move forward, so we anticipate it will be kind of a never-ending project.

On service providers using the network: Anyone who meets our requirements is able to offer services on the network. There was talk early on about some exclusivity, but with the changes that occurred at AT&T, it wasn’t in their best interest to offer video anymore. So without being able to offer a triple-play package, they were more than happy to allow another provider that would offer a triple-play offering. AT&T will offer voice and data. MStar will offer voice, video and data. There’s a third service provider that will offer data that they haven’t announced. I can’t disclose their name.

On losing Salt Lake City last April: To say it wasn’t an impact would be a lie. It was an impact, but we’re moving forward without them. I think the bigger impact is on them. They had commitments from Qwest that they’d take DSL to a certain percentage of their population by the following year. As you’d probably guess, that didn’t happen, and there’s probably some regret, I don’t know. Not everyone has the 256 kb/s they were promised.

On open-access municipal FTTP: I think all the third-tier cities are going to have to have it to stay competitive. The first-tier cities, by and large, some of them will be taken care of, but not completely. They won’t all get fiber, and it won’t be to every premises. But the second- and third-tier cities are certainly at risk, because the RBOCs and MSOs are only going after the more lucrative areas, which makes sense for a shareholder-owned organization. But everyone should get a road to their house. Those that don’t are going to be really disadvantaged. In time there will need to be an answer of one type or another if they want to be part of the new economy. I don’t have the numbers that define [third-cities] off the top of my head. [Roughly] half a million to a million [people]. Salt Lake City would be a third-tier city.

On municipal Wi-Fi: The better the fiber, the better the wireless. Our focus is fiber. The problem with Wi-Fi, beyond the security and traffic issues, is it can’t support multiple service providers. You end up in a similar situation. The only way it can support the service providers it needs to provide a level playing field is to have it all backed with fiber run into the home anyway. Will we integrate Wifi into our solutions? If it makes sense. For rural areas or extremely dense areas. But we won’t do it at the expense of having an open network.

On the proof point: Within a year, people will see the take rates. We have early indications that are very positive. From Utopia’s perspective, I think they hope people keep wanting to wait and see because they’re going after the employee base that is in those cities [that are] waiting to see. They’re not anxious to share some of that information, because they want to get a leg up. Municipalities are very competitive.

On whether big-carrier consolidation will prompt an increase in muni-FTTP: We hope so.