West Valley City, Utah October 7, 2008 – Today the Open Service Provider Network model took a major step forward as the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency (“UTOPIA”) announced that FirstDigital strengthened its relationship with UTOPIA by continuing to provide telecommunications services over the UTOPIA open access fiber-optic network.
“We are pleased that FirstDigital have recommitted to serving customers on the UTOPIA network,” said Todd Marriott, UTOPIA’s Executive Director and CEO. “This is a strong signal of the great opportunity available to service providers in an Open Access environment. FirstDigital’s experience in providing competitively priced, high-quality digital communications provide a wide range of choices to businesses in UTOPIA’s member cities,” he added.
This announcement is a result of recent strategic decision taken by FirstDigital. FirstDigital has made significant investments in its next generation network and has made a renewed focus on providing services over UTOPIA next generation network.
“We at FirstDigital are very excited to strengthen our relationship with UTOPIA. After examining the recent changes they have made to their organization and improvements they have made to their network we feel the opportunities are significant,” said Drew Peterson, President of FirstDigital. “The real winners here will be the businesses in the UTOPIA cities since they get the best of both worlds – the best products and services on the most advanced network.”
The Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency is a consortium of 16 Utah cities engaged in deploying and operating a fiber-optic telecommunications network within their communities.
UTOPIA’s key mission is to provide a competitive marketplace for telecommunications services for citizens of member cities. UTOPIA provides the physical infrastructure while private sector companies compete to provide internet, voice, video and other services over that infrastructure. This allows residents and businesses to choose from a number of providers, each setting their own competitive rates.
UTOPIA’s fiber-optic infrastructure is unique in Utah as it is the only network that brings digital signals traveling at the speed of light directly to the premise using multiple and competing service providers, for both the business and residential markets. Fiber-to-the-Premises provides speed and bandwidth that copper and wireless networks cannot provide. This ultra-fast, high-capacity “economic highway” allows businesses and residents in UTOPIA cities to compete in the information-based world economy and enjoy the higher quality of life only an advanced Fiber-to-the-Premises network provides.
FirstDigital is Utah’s largest VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) provider, with over 10,000 customers in Utah. FirstDigital focuses is providing world class next generation networks with a local customer service approach.
FirstDigital was founded in the late 1980s as Off Campus Telecommunications providing local dial tone and long distance to off-campus student housing at universities and colleges across Utah. In the mid 90’s the company started its ISP business and in 2002 launched FirstDigital to provide services to business customers in Utah County. Since 2002 FirstDigital acquired its CLEC certificate, built out FirstDigital’s next Generation Local and Long Distance network and in 2008 will finish building out is Fiber network connecting FirstDigtal’s Network to the Qwest Network throughout the state.