By Jonathan Wardle
With the sale of its cable business, Provo City is one step closer to extending a fiber-optic network to the entire city - if it can get approval from the city council.
In February, Provo City approved the sale of Provo Cable to King Comm L.L.C., the company that has been managing Provo Cable for over a year. King Comm will lease the cable lines owned by the city in order to service its customers.
Steve King, owner of King Comm, proposed a majority of the terms of the lease agreement between Provo City and his company.
'I actually responded with a proposal of how I wanted to see it,' King said. 'I determined the terms. The city was pretty agreeable with my terms, we just changed a few minor things. ...I don''t have any problems with it.'
King said a few changes are coming, but the company will stay basically the same. He said King Comm is looking to add a UPN affiliate to their line-up of channel offerings, as well as a history channel and a Spanish channel.
While King Comm now owns the cable business, Provo City still owns and maintains the physical infrastructure - the wires and cable lines.
Paul Venturella, manager of telecommunications for Provo City, said he is glad not to be the cable channel provider for the city.
'We want to be the ones that provide the infrastructure, but we don''t want to be the retail provider,' Venturella said. 'And the same thing for the Internet and telephone and anything else.'
Venturella is developing a plan to connect the entire city with one network. The hope is that the city will be able to attract multiple Internet providers and cable companies.
'If we build the network, and then the providers come on it, providers can come and go and there can be multiple providers,' Venturella said. 'It''s not like if one company withdraws then it shuts down, because the city owns the network.'
He compares the plan to an airport.
'When we sold the customers to King Comm, in order for him to provide service to those customers, he has to lease space on our network,' Venturella said. 'It''s kind of like an airline leasing a terminal at an airport.'
Venturella said the city will probably use fiber-optic cable to wire the city-wide network in order to maintain a high-standard of technology.
'We''re pretty sure that we are only interested in the fiber optic network,' Venturella said. 'We''re very comfortable that the actual physical fiber is going to be used well into the future.'
Before such a network can be put in place, the mayor and the city council have to approve the plan Venturella proposes to them.
Venturella said he plans on taking as much time as necessary to develop the plan.
Susan Bramble, chair of the Cable Television Board for Provo City, has high expectations of the Provo system.
'We should have the kind of system that everybody would want to lease and use, because it will far exceed anything that we''ve got here in Provo right now,' Bramble said. 'Ours will be a true fiber system and it will be a big pipe, and the fiber will go to each house.'
Bramble said there is a system being made to take care of the city departments and offices. When that is done, she expects the city will be able to move forward with further development of their system.
'Right now they''re doing a loop that will take care of all the city''s needs, and that little loop was approved and it''s almost completed,' she said. 'After that''s completed, then the city council will go ahead and decide if they want to expand it.'
Bramble said she expects action to be taken within the next six months.
Bramble said some people oppose the system.
'I agree with what they''re saying,' she said. 'But if we can do it without causing a tax increase, are people still opposed to it?'
While Provo City Councilman Paul Warner said he agreed with the sale of the cable business to King Comm, he is still concerned that fiber optic technology might not be the best possible choice.
'I''m still wanting to be sure that''s the best way to go,' Warner said. 'Because I have some feelings that there are some wireless opportunities that are in front of us.'
Warner said Provo is already setting the groundwork that might make wireless technology a viable option for a citywide telecommunications system.