The Utah Infrastructure Agency (UIA) has received $48 million in funding, money it will use for the expansion of the UTOPIA/UIA Network. Though they are legally separate entities, UTOPIA and UIA functionally operate as one integrated system and both are marketed as UTOPIA Fiber.
UTOPIA said most of its growth since 2009 has been due to its partnership with UIA.
UTOPIA Fiber provides business services in more than 50 cities and has fiber-to-the-home networks in 14. The company is a partner with Idaho Falls Fiber, which recently voted to extend their high-speed fiber network to their entire city. UTOPIA Fiber is available to more than 100,000 homes and businesses.
The most recent round of funding is the fourth and largest that UIA has closed on within the past 12 months, and follows financing for projects in Morgan City ($2.6M), West Point ($7.2M), and Payson ($3.5M).
Participating cities receive air-quality monitoring, smart water and energy management, public WiFi, and many other smart-city applications.
“We have the best partners in the business who have worked relentlessly over the past few months to get us to this point,” said Roger Timmerman, UTOPIA Fiber executive director, in a prepared statement. “The demand for municipally-owned fiber has skyrocketed and we are excited to be a leader in the industry. Over the past four years, UTOPIA Fiber has doubled the number of subscribers on its fiber network and has entered into partnerships with several additional communities.”
