- Utopia Fiber CEO Roger Timmerman says true open access supports a number of internet service providers
- He noted that AT&T and BlackRock’s Gigapower JV primarily supports AT&T, currently
- Meanwhile, Utopia’s network often supports as many as 19 internet service providers
Utopia Fiber has been building open access fiber networks before hardly anyone in the U.S. knew what that was. Now, open access is gaining prominence, thanks to big players like AT&T getting in on the action. But Roger Timmerman, executive director and CEO of Utopia Fiber, said he doesn’t consider AT&T’s Gigapower joint venture with BlackRock to be a true open access network – at least not yet.
Timmerman argued that in his opinion AT&T isn’t really doing open access because it’s the only tenant on the Gigapower network. And the whole point of an open access network is for multiple providers to use the underlying infrastructure.
“I would not describe AT&T’s Gigapower as open access," he told Fierce. "Once an end user can subscribe to multiple operators on that system then it’s open access. Right now, it’s not even really wholesale. AT&T is the only end user on it.”
He said Gigapower will first probably be “a new brand of wholesale network expansion for AT&T." Eventually it might be a true open access network outside of AT&T’s legacy footprint. But word on the street, according to Timmerman, is that AT&T doesn’t have a big desire to make the Gigapower network widely open.
“They don’t want 10 local providers competing,” he said. “They specifically said in conversations I’ve had, they don’t want the little guys. It’s too much of a hassle.”
Utopia’s brand of open access
In contrast, Utopia Fiber supports as many as 19 internet service providers on some of its networks. The company has about 71,000 subscribers in total across municipalities in Utah, Montana and Idaho. “We don’t call ourselves wholesalers,” said Timmerman.
For its most common model, “People come to us; they pick their flavor of internet that uses our network,” he said. “End users have a relationship with us. The device in the home says ‘Utopia.’ The technician who comes to the home is from Utopia. Most sales come through us.
People select their ISP separately, and they can easily switch between providers. “In most cases they know us more than they know the ISP,” he said.
Despite the large number of ISPs supported on its networks, Utopia doesn’t accept just any ISP. It looks for providers that have some kind of differentiation, whether it’s consumer privacy technology, in-home applications, white glove customer support or a specialty serving multi-dwelling units.
While critics of open access say that the business model creates a race to the bottom where every ISP is trying to undercut the others in terms of price, Timmerman said that’s not true. He said the ISP with the most subscribers on its networks – X Mission – is also its highest-priced provider. “They get a lot of sales from recommendations and reviews,” he said.
But Utopia vets its ISPs carefully. It doesn’t want ISPs who plan to use predatory pricing in order to steal market share so that it can capture investor attention at a loss. It also doesn’t want ISPs that just want to get access to homes so that it can sell them something else.
“Not all providers get allowed on the system,” said Timmerman. “We’re open but not wide open."
In any event, Utopia considers itself true open access because multiple providers can share the same infrastructure to drive competition for consumers. In contrast, Timmerman said AT&T’s primary goal is simple: to drive shareholder value.
Encouraging competition
There’s clearly a lot of activity in the U.S. to deploy fiber, especially with the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. But Timmerman warned that getting fiber broadband to all locations doesn’t necessarily bring competition. When there’s only one fiber provider in a location, it can charge high prices and give bad customer service. Timmerman called this “Comcast 2.0 – the next monopoly.”
But at the same time, he said the economics of fiber overbuilding don’t work. Given how expensive it is to lay fiber, there’s little chance that many locations will have multiple fiber providers to choose from.
“The attitude in the past was: If we just get fiber to a home or business, it’s good. But more people are realizing it’s not the future we want," Timmerman concluded. "We want competition. People also want good service and a good price. Open access brings that competition.”