Provo City selling iProvo system to a private company

[Mike Lovell]

Chris Carey wrote:
> The controversial broadband network owned by Provo City has been sold.
> iProvo had lost millions of dollars in recent years. So what does that
> mean to customers and taxpayers?
>
> iProvo brought an infrastructure of fiber optic and high-speed
> Internet, phone and TV to Provo residents.
>
> Now Provo City is selling the entire system to a private company, and
> city officials say they will recoup the losses the system has had in
> recent years.
>
> The announcement came today as Provo Mayor Lewis Billings announced
> his proposed budget for the city.
>
> http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=3244021
>   
Wow. I must say that I am a little surprised by this move by the City of 
Provo. Not necessarily that they are taking such an action. But by the 
fact that it was not brought up before and that the city did not take 
bids for the network before a deal has been made.
I can see some benefits and some down sides to this move. One thing that 
I am willing to admit is that the city has not exactly done a great job 
of managing a network like this, from a business perspective. So, 
getting control of the network to a private company might yield some 
benefits in this area. Assuming that Broadweave networks knows how to do so.
One big downside I see though is that a private company would have 
control over the traffic and network service providers on the network. 
My biggest concern would be if Broadweave starts pushing providers off 
the network and does not let other future providers in. Granted, MStar 
and Veracity aren't the greatest providers in the world but they are 
better than some. There might be some restrictions put into the purchase 
contract that would prevent Broadweave from doing something like that. 
And it does appear from their website that they are a network operator 
and not a service provider.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the network and what the 
terms of the purchase contract are. Anyways. There are my few remarks 
about it.

Mike