UIA secured the latest round of funding in partnership with Lewis Young Robertson & Burningham, Inc. (Financial Advisor), KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc. (Senior Managing Underwriter), and Gilmore & Bell (Bond and Disclosure Counsel). Since 2011, the majority of UTOPIA Fiber’s growth has come from its synergistic relationship with UIA, designing, financing, building, and operating state-of-the-art ultra-high-speed fiber-broadband networks, firmly securing its position as the largest publicly-owned Open Access fiber network in the United States.

“What we’re seeing with this latest round of funding is stronger-than-ever demand for high-speed fiber networks,” said Roger Timmerman, UTOPIA Fiber’s executive director. “The $52.5 million provides the capital to build out the remaining areas of our original 11 cities and to add customers throughout our coverage area. We continue to have the best partners in the business, who have worked tirelessly to get us to this point,” he added.

UTOPIA Fiber provides fiber-to-the-home services in 15 cities and business services in 50. They serve as operational parter for Idaho Falls Fiber in Idaho and are in talks with additional municipalities to bring the network to their communities. UTOPIA Fiber is available to 130,000 homes and businesses, offers the fastest internet speeds in the United States (10 Gbps residential and 100 Gbps commercial), and enjoys being ranked as the highest-rated internet option in Utah.

This round of new funding is the largest that UIA has closed on in agency history and the third in the last 14 months ($48 million in November 2019 and $13 million in August 2020). UTOPIA Fiber continues to bring competitive services from 14 internet service providers (ISPs) at the fastest speeds and best value.

UTOPIA Fiber’s Open Access model enables communities to have access to a free and open internet without throttling, paid prioritization, or other provider interference. Participating cities can also benefit from various Smart City applications that are enabled by the UTOPIA Fiber network including early wildfire detection systems, free public WiFi, Smart water and energy management, and air pollution monitoring services.

“The pandemic has shown us just how important fast, affordable, and reliable broadband service is. We believe publicly-owned Open Access fiber networks are the future of American internet connectivity and are excited to be at the forefront of that movement,” Timmerman said.

The public is invited to visit UTOPIAfiber.com for service maps, build-out timelines, and information on how to sign up for UTOPIA Fiber services.

About UTOPIA Fiber

Created by a group of Utah cities, the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA) is a community-owned fiber-optic network that uses the Open Access model to promote competition by giving customers the freedom to choose which telecommunication services they want. With fiber availability to over 130,000 businesses and residences in over 50 communities, UTOPIA Fiber is the largest and most-successful Open Access network in the United States, and enjoys the industry’s highest customer satisfaction scores. Since 2009, the agency has successfully designed, built, and operated over $250 million worth of fiber projects throughout Utah, all of which have been funded completely through subscriber revenue, at no cost to taxpayers.

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Founded in 2004, UTOPIA Fiber is a group of 13 Utah cities that share an open access fiber network that provides both high speed fiber internet to homes and businesses across the state. Since its inception, the company has managed to offer up to 10 Gigabit service on a publicly-owned network that allows for ample competition among more than a dozen internet service providers.

At a recent Fiber for Breakfast live video series, two executives from UTOPIA Fiber talked about the benefits of an open access network, and how their experience has allowed people across Utah to access some of the best internet in the country.

“We’re the infrastructure and we enable private sector companies to ride on our lines,” said Kim McKinley, CMO of UTOPIA Fiber.

Open access networks allow independent service providers to operate on a shared network. In UTOPIA Fiber’s case, they build the network, manage it and update it over time. By entering into agreements with cities and communities around the state, they’re able to finance the projects and pay for them using revenue from the networks, said UTOPIA Fiber CEO Roger Timmerman.

What makes this open access model different from others is that all customers go through UTOPIA Fiber to get their internet and the company lets them select the service provider of their choice. Timmerman compared it to an airport: UTOPIA builds the infrastructure to house the “planes” and passengers decide which airline to select.

“We put in a fiber system and allow all these different companies to come in and use it,” he said. “This makes the network work in big cities, it works in small cities and it’s a really exciting model for bringing competition to rural areas that used to typically have no good options or none at all.”

McKinley said allowing this type of competition has increased customer satisfaction overall. Amid a pandemic, the company was able to add new cities to their roster, improve their overall customer satisfaction and secure new bonds for network expansion in the future.

“We’re the fastest growing municipal network in the country,” she said. “We are growing incredibly fast and it’s an exciting project and an exciting industry to be in now.”

One of the major benefits of the open access model is the expansion of competition. Timmerman said while UTOPIA hasn’t seen too many monopoly providers in their state—besides some cases in rural areas where there’s one provider—but as more companies are beginning to create their own networks, they’re interested in joining communal solutions. This helps drive prices down and gives customers options when it comes to things like speed and capacity.

“Being the monopoly is good for one entity—and that’s the entity,” he said. “I think there is a compelling case for them to participate [in open access models] when they’ve lost the market.”

McKinley and Timmerman said what makes UTOPIA Fiber most unique is its approach to the customer. Being able to provide reliable internet at competitive prices for cities large and small—and doing it with a direct relationship to the customer—allows them to serve areas previously overlooked.

“This was an effort by communities and people coming together to identify a need,” Timmerman said. “On their own, they wouldn’t have been able to pull this together. But through partnerships we’re able to get a good economy of scale. We serve those communities, we don’t have shareholders and we reinvest in the communities.”

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