Steve Wozniak and the Lure of Fiber

September 21st, 2012

Few people have more “geek cred” than Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. After all, he’s known to many simply as “Woz.” And, it seems Woz loves the concept of bringing fiber optics to everyone.

While in Australia last week for the launch of the iPhone 5, Woz had plenty of nice things to say about the country’s fiber broadband effort. In fact, according to The Australian Financial Review, he likes the idea so much, he’s applying for Australian citizenship.

The article quotes him as saying, “I support it [the fiber effort] very much. It’s one of the reasons why I actually like this country and want to become a citizen. I live in a country where we don’t have any regulation of telecommunications.”

That’s quite a statement from a tech icon. It just goes to show what lengths some would go to for superior connectivity.

The article also says, “Despite his status as a technology icon, Mr Wozniak said he was not connected to a broadband service in his home in California, classing the options available to him as a ‘monopoly’. ‘There’s only one set of wires to be on and I’m not going to pull strings to get them to do something special for me,’ he said. ‘When I worked at Hewlett-Packard we treated ourselves like a family and protecting each other and I believe in that.’”

Obviously Woz has the resources to relocate, at least part-time, to Australia. Not everyone can do that. But it’s also good to know that, with UTOPIA, residents in our member cities not only have the fiber connection he covets, but also don’t have to put up with the monopoly situation he deprecates.

There’s a little irony here as well. Woz is the “Chief Scientist” of Fusion-io, a company headquartered in Salt Lake City (Cottonwood Heights). We’ve contacted the firm’s PR representative and extended an invitation for him to visit UTOPIA and get a close look at what an open-access fiber network looks like. We want to show him that you don’t have to go half way around the world to get exceptional broadband.

We’ll let you know if he takes us up on the offer.