<soapbox>

 I heard that iProvo was ahead by about 25% on subscriptions and that
since they were selling some of their services to Utopia (their IP
television) they were receiving more revenue then they had expected by a
long shot. Things about your comments seem fishy, like the 1Mb and
$40,000 install charge. I can understand wanting to light up an entire
complex rather then just a few apartments, but I was unaware this was a
city mandate. I'd really like to see that in writing. It just seemed to
be company decision, much like Comcast or Provo cable to apartment
complexes. And for $40,000, they should be able to get 100Mb to the
apartment complex! Geesh! They are probably including the cost of
additional fibre switches, etc to handle the extra load, but $40,000
that is pretty bad. With fibre, there is no reason that they could not
offer 10Mb to each unit, heck even 100Mb, the bandwidth possibilities
with fibre are unlimited although iProvo has been a bit conservative.
  In any case, I've been on it since it's been in my area and it's nice
to have an Internet bill for less then $100 a month and have 10 times
the performance. I wouldn't believe a lot of what the companies tell you
over the phone, most of them do not have a clue about any of the detail
of iProvo. A rep from Mstar told me that I could only have 5 IP address
because they were ties to e-mail addresses. I got a hold of an engineer
and he told me that was defiantly not the case. As far as the "city
requires that the entire building be lit" comment, I think they are
using that so that the company doesn't look bad, but the city does. I
have never heard of such legislation.

<\soapbox>

Robert LeBlanc

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Behalf Of Andrew McNabb
> Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 4:34 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [uug] iProvo stinks
> 
> I read today that iProvo is having financial trouble [1].  They're
> complaining that they only have half of the subscribers that they had
> projected.  I'm really not surprised.  They stink.
> 
> IProvo just became available in my area, so I called up MSTAR to see
how
> to sign up.  They said that the city has imposed a regulation that all
> apartment complexes with more than 10 units have to sign up for iProvo
> as a group (and everyone has to go with the same ISP).
> 
> I went and talked to the manager of the apartment complex, who it
turns
> out has been talking to both Veracity and MSTAR.  She's spent hours on
> hold and has been treated pretty badly, especially for someone who has
> nearly 500 residents.  Even though iProvo advertises 10 mbps, they can
> only offer 1 mbps _for the entire complex_, and they want to charge
> $40,000 upfront for installation ($333 per apartment).
> 
> If (a) you don't provide a worthwhile service, (b) you don't let
> individuals sign up, and (c) you make sure groups can't afford to sign
> up; then how can you possibly be surprised when you fail?
> 
> [1] http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3533798
> 
> --
> Andrew McNabb
> http://www.mcnabbs.org/andrew/
> PGP Fingerprint: 8A17 B57C 6879 1863 DE55  8012 AB4D 6098 8826 6868

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