Preview for Next Week: My Trip to UTOPIA

Just got back late last night from a whirlwind day and a half tour of UTOPIA, the high profile fiber-to-the-home build that unites 14 communities outside of Salt Lake City and delivers symmetrical Internet access of 15Mbps and above.

During my short stay I had a chance to meet with Roger Black, COO of UTOPIA; the team over at XMission, one of the service providers who rides UTOPIA's network; most of the upper management of DynamicCity, the company that helps UTOPIA and other communities design, deploy, and manage fiber networks; and some of the people over at iProvo, which serves the nearby community of Provo with a fiber network.

And scattered in between and during these meetings were visits to XMission's banks of servers located in a renovated historical building in downtown Salt Lake City, the underground concrete bunker facility UTOPIA utilizes near its headquarters in a business park in Lindon, and iProvo's headend which was situated in a residential neighborhood.

Next week, I'm devoting myself to writing up posts that originate from my experiences in UTOPIA in an effort to help give more insight into what's happening with this project, and how the lessons they're learning reflect larger issues regarding the Internet and the growing supply/demand for bandwidth.

I'll be approaching this from multiple angles, including what happens to bandwidth demands once the capacity of fiber is put in place, how open access networks work and where they fit into the bigger picture of the Internet's evolution, and what challenges both UTOPIA and iProvo have faced as they push hard to drive adoption of and innovation on their networks.

Look forward to the first post being ready for you to read first thing Monday morning. Until then, it's time for me to get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather here in DC!