Provo Awards Contract to ‘Light Up’ Fiber Optic Network

Provo officials recently awarded a $2.8 million contract to Veradale, Wa.-based World Wide Packets to provide the equipment and technical support to “light up” the city’s fiber optic network.

Mary DeLaMare-Schaefer, marketing and customer relations director of Provo City Power, said the request for proposals elicited no local bids. World Wide Packets is a four-year old firm that trademarks slogans like “Fiber to the Subscriber;” company representatives tout its trademarked LightningEdge single-access platform for business and residential subscribers as providing “the most cost-competitive broadband access.” Provo powers also appreciated that its equipment, from portals at homes and businesses to central controls, is compatible with other systems which could be used in the future, DeLaMareSchaefer said.

The two-year contract is part of iProvo, a municipal drive to launch a community-wide fiber optic network. Provo will lease the already installed city-owned fiber optic infrastructure to private firms that will sell phone, Internet and video services to residential and commercial subscribers. The first provider will be Ephrata, Wa.-based VIB (Video Internet Broadcasting Corp.), though DeLaMare-Schaefer foresees eventually leasing at least some fiber to local providers.

“We got some local bids, but none with the same level of experience,” she said of the initial RFP.

Rather than a traditional Internet service provider, VIB is a video service provider, which company literature promotes as combining “ultra high-speed connectivity with DVD quality video and a variety of value added services to maximize use of fiber optic networks for visual and communication needs.” VIB quotes speeds up to one gigabyte of fiber optic content to homes.

“Keep your eyes on us”, DeLaMare-Schaefer said. “We’re going to have some fantastic speeds that will be hard to compete with.”

Copyright Enterprise Business Newspaper Inc. Apr 12, 2004