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What is UTOPIA? UTOPIA is a state-of-the-art fiber optic network built by your city for your community. Your community-owned fiber optic network allows residents to connect to the world in a way they have never experienced before, providing blazing fast Internet speeds, phone, and television services. How did UTOPIA get started? In 2002, numerous Utah cities wanted incumbent telecoms providers to upgrade their infrastructure with fiber optics. Some cities even offered to pay for this upgrade. The cities believed that by making advanced high speed broadband a reality for residents, businesses and educational institutions would strengthening economic development and improve quality of life. When the incumbents declined, the cities united as UTOPIA to provide this infrastructure themselves. How is UTOPIA different? The UTOPIA network is open access. That means subscribers get to choose the service provider they want. Our open access network promotes consumer choice because any ISP can use it. And if you don’t like your ISP, it’s easy to change. What are the benefits of fiber optics? • Consistent, parallel speeds. That means when you sign up for a 50/50 connection, you’ll get 50 Mbps up- and download. • A dedicated line—no sharing. When you get home from work and need to use the Internet, you’ll enjoy all the bandwidth you need, because you aren’t sharing a cable or DSL connection with all the school kids in the neighborhood. • “Future proof.” This is a bit of an abstract concept, but the great benefit of fiber optics is that it can handle immense amounts of data, which means it can handle applications we haven’t even thought of yet. Whereas 700 Kbps was once the definition of broadband, these days 5 Mbps is barely adequate. What will our everyday usage require in 2015, 2020, and beyond? Isn’t optical fiber obsolete? Until some mechanism is found that can exceed the speed of light, optic fibers—which transmit data using light— are never going to be obsolete. Fiber provides more accurate and reliable data transmission than copper wiring (“cable”), and fiber has a much higher maximum capacity “bandwidth”). Wireless is also exciting and will spawn many new innovations, but wireless connections will always be far slower than fiber connections. What does UTOPIA cost? How does $65 a month sound for a 50/50 connection? By choosing a UTOPIA lease option, you can pay $30 a month for the infrastructure and $35 a month for 50 Mbps service. Dollar-for-dollar and bit-for-bit, that’s a better deal than Comcast’s or CenturyLink’s non-promotional pricing. If you want to handle the infrastructure using our ownership-like model, we offer the CUE (Customer Utility Enhancement) connection. Customers can pay for it upfront for $2,750. Or, they can pay $300 down and $30 a month for 10 years, or no money down and $25 a month for 20 years. The ISP will charge for their services as well.