The Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency, or UTOPIA, hosted Fiber Friday to demonstrate the benefits of fiber optics.

The open house also shared examples of being wired provides economic development advantages.

“If you think back a century ago, we called electricity ‘the light bill.’ It turns on the lights. My grandma still refers to it as the light bill. Today, that one thin line connectivity into the 100 years. It’s this century’s infrastructure,” said Todd Marriott, Executive Director of UTOPIA.

16 Utah cities are part of UTOPIA. The network offers fiber-to-the-premises technology, allowing for much faster uploads and downloads.