Tag: municipal broadband

Straight Talk About Fiber

10/28/2023 / David Rodeback

It’s past time for a fresh batch of straight talk here about citywide fiber optic broadband in American Fork. There’s a lot of information about the City’s project at the City website, and it’s well worth reading. But here we’ll do something the City can’t. We’ll look at the project in the context of the current city council election.

If you’re one of those readers (thank you for reading!) who seeks only information here and prefers to avoid analysis, commentary, and opinion, proceed with caution. There’s information here, but it’s arrayed against incomplete and inaccurate information spread by two of the five American Fork City Council candidates, and there’s some analysis, commentary, and opinion in the mix. But I’ll meet you halfway, sort of. I’ll only name those two candidates at the very end, in case that helps you focus on the information.

I’m firmly in favor of the project, but there are legitimate reasons why well-informed voters might oppose it. As in many other realms of our political discourse, I wish people would argue for or against a thing (or candidate) for legitimate reasons, without thinking they have to abandon truth and context in favor of spin, selective information, and untruth.

I’ve said that before. Call me naive — or perhaps spoiled, lately — but I expect better in American Fork than we sometimes get from other levels of our politics.

American Fork River near flood stage next to Harbor Road

AF City Council Interviews: Water and Fiber

05/31/2023 / David Rodeback

This post addresses three topics from my interviews this month with the American Fork City Council: short-term concerns about the overabundance of water, long-term concerns about having enough water for current needs and to sustain growth, and the effort to bring fiber optic connectivity to the entire city, including homes and businesses the major telecom providers have declined to serve.

(Insert your own joke about [water-]soluble dietary fiber here. We’re not talking about that kind of fiber.)

Water, Water Everywhere!

I asked each member of the council what’s going on in the city just now, and they all mentioned water. The water is hard to miss, to be sure, especially if you’ve wandered down toward the harbor lately.

Fiber for American Fork, Part 6: New Thoughts and Closing the Loop

11/18/2019 / David Rodeback

I last posted about American Fork City’s proposed citywide fiber optic utility about three weeks ago. At the time I had some unresolved, long-standing concerns (though I have favored the proposal since before it went public).

Since then, I’ve read some documents, including the City’s service agreement with LightHub Fiber, an interlocal agency through which the utility may be created. (Trust me, no one will want the movie rights to that document.) And I’ve spoken at length with City Administrator David Bunker.

I have new information on a couple of points, which changes my view of one part of the question. I’m also ready to close the loop on those unresolved concerns.

Fiber for American Fork, Part 5: Mid-October Update

10/23/2019 / David Rodeback

The American Fork City Council continues to weigh the proposal to create a new utility to extend fiber optic connectivity to every residence and business in American Fork. I’ve spoken with members of the city council and others about it in the last couple of week, some briefly and some at greater length. Without presuming to speak in detail for any of them, I thought I might offer a more general update.

Fiber for American Fork, Part 4: Why Not UTOPIA?

10/01/2019 / David Rodeback

UTOPIA Comes Calling

In the early weeks of 2019 the Utah Telecommunications Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA) approached American Fork City officials with an invitation for American Fork to join UTOPIA. The City weighed the offer and declined — but that set some other things in motion.

City leaders began to assemble legal, financial, and technical experts with experience in similar projects around the United States and beyond. Essentially their question was, Is there something better we could do to position American Fork for the future?

Fiber for American Fork, Part 3: Responses to 22 Concerns and Objections

09/12/2019 / David Rodeback

This is the third of my planned blog posts about a proposal the American Fork City Council is studying to extend fiber optic connectivity to every residence and business in American Fork as a utility. It’s not on the November ballot, but incumbent candidates will cast key votes as city council members.

The first post gave a quick overview and also mentioned my service on an ad hoc mayoral task force, which examined the proposal deeply from several angles and reported recommendations and concerns to the American Fork City Council. The second post listed several key benefits we can anticipate, if we build the system.

We all come to matters of local, state, and national government from different perspectives. While I favor the proposal and believe the City can execute well enough in this case, it’s possible for intelligent, well-meaning people (among others) to disagree.

I’ve been collecting reasons people have cited for opposing the project. Here I’ll list that collection, add a few more I haven’t heard yet but probably will, and tell you briefly what I think of each. Some are better than others.

Fiber for American Fork, Part 2: Anticipated Benefits

09/04/2019 / David Rodeback

This is the second of several planned blog posts about a proposal the American Fork City Council is considering to extend fiber optic connectivity to every residence and business in American Fork as a utility. You can find a more detailed description of the proposal itself in the previous post, where I also explain my head start in knowing about the proposal.

Before we go further, I should interrupt for an apology. I hoped to post this before I left for Lake Tahoe (hence the photo) for a week at the end of July. Now it’s not even August any more, and I’m finally posting it. Sorry about that.

This post explores the expected benefits to residents, businesses, and the City itself, if we build the fiber system. This is one important angle from which to view the proposal. Another will follow in the next post: good and bad reasons for opposing it.