Unanimous: Provo Utah Council Approves Google Fiber

symbolset writes "In a unanimous vote the Provo Municipal Council has agreed to a plan to sell the city's troubled iProvo fiber Internet network to Google. Although this makes Provo, Utah the third city to embrace Google's ambitious gigabit fiber to the home plan the existing network will allow the residents of Provo to see faster installation than the others. Google had previously announced plans to proceed immediately on approval." They city handed the network over for $1, but there are hidden costs, from the article: "Provo taxpayers will still have to pay off a $39 million bond that the city originally issued to build the network. With interest, taxpayers still have to pay $3.3 million in bond payments per year for the next 12 years. ... The city will have to pay about $722,000 for equipment in order to continue using the gigabit service for government operations ... The city also has to pay about $500,000 to a civil engineering firm to determine exactly where the fiber optic cables are buried ... Google will lease the network to Provo city for free for 15 years."

Re:Should have been the University of Utah

[phantomfive]

Because Provo already built out large portions of a fiber optic network. That's where the $39million bond comes from. However, they were having trouble administering it, and were losing a lot more money every year. What they are basically saying is, "here, take over this project for us and you can have all the profits." The city wants fast internet, and Google wants to make money providing it. Wikipedia has more info.

If you want SLC to have fiber, talk to the city council. Maybe they'll take up a bond and build it, too.

Not quite a fair deal

[therealobsideus]

Not a bad deal, at least as far as Google goes. Considering what Google charges for the 7/yr 5mb service (which is just a $300 buildout fee), the city basically just covered the cost for that. Free gigabit service to 25 public institutions (schools, universities etc).. not bad. And Google is going to finish building out to homes that were not part of the original build contract. All in all, not bad. Especially if you look at iProvo's history - the city has been stuck with the bond payments the entire time, this just actually gets them something for holding that debt.

Re:Google Fiber

[i kan reed]

Pressure cookers have gotten a bad rap from terrorists, but I'll be damned if you can't get delicious food out of them.

Re:incompetence

[rahvin112]

The only incompetence is your understanding. Out here in the real world things change in the field. That's because when the plans say install the line 1' off the sidewalk but as they start installing it they find the gas line is in that exact location they do some quick test holes and make a field change to move the wire to different spot.

This is why in civil engineering you have plans, and you have a second set of plans called As-Builts, because how it was built often has serious variations form where it actually was shown to be built. I've seen utilities on the opposite side of the street, Buried 10' deep when they are supposed to be 18 inches, I've seen them follow a relatively straight line then jog 20' off for 10' then jog right back.

See in the real world when you go to bury something you don't always know what you are going to run into. There is all kinds of stuff out there that's buried that no one knows is there and sometimes people don't even know what it is. I've stood in front of excavations staring at pipes that no one has any idea what it is, it's not on plans, city maps or even acknowledged by the dig locating service. I've also seen them run into buried rail lines, coffins and all sorts of things that would make your head spin. I've seen lines that were installed exactly as shown, but the road and homes that delineated it's location are gone because they were torn down and a shopping mall was built in their place. Real world buried utilities is very very hard and your an idiot for thinking it's easy.

Oh and $500k is CHEAP for a subsurface utility investigation on a city the size of provo.