2020 has been the year of remote work, telehealth, and distance learning, and we’re honored to be making that adjustment easier for families throughout Utah. We’ve been working hard to bring our essential Internet service to as many households as possible. The future of fiber broadband is bright, and we are proud to be the nation’s largest and most-successful publicly-owned Open Access fiber network.  

Check out our breakdown below to see what we accomplished in 2020.

2020 in numbers

Feet of conduit laid: 1.7 million

Feet of fiber-optic cable laid: 1.4 million

Footprints released: 30

Additional homes able to connect to our network: 20,500

New residential subscribers: 10,200

New business connections: 510

HOAs completed: 42

New cities with completed build-outs: 3 (Layton, Morgan, West Point City)

Additional cities added to our network: 2 (West Point City and Clearfield City)

Internet Service Providers added to our network: 2 (Advanced Stream and Rise Broadband) 

Increase of the daily average in-home data usage in 2020: 38%

Number of 5-star Google Reviews: 491

Overall Google Review Rating: 4.5/5

Top news stories of 2020

1. We gave a local tech expert, Quinn from Snazzy Labs, a behind the scenes look at our office, and signed him up for the fastest speeds in the nation. Check out this video for an explanation of how our fiber-optic network works. And, check out this follow up video where Quinn explains true Internet speeds.
2. The Daily Herald wrote this article early in the COVID-19 pandemic, about the number of UTOPIA Fiber subscribers quickly increasing due to increased working from home, remote learning, and telehealth services.
3. The COVID 19 pandemic has revealed a gap in our online infrastructure. Read this Op-Ed that ran in the Salt Lake Tribune written by our very own Roger Timmerman for his take on how we can fix this issue.
4. Our CEO, Roger Timmerman, and our CMO, Kim McKinley, sat down with EDCUtah earlier this year to answer 5 Questions about UTOPIA Fiber. You can read their answers here.
5. KSL News wrote this article about our Morgan City fiber project completion, highlighting the astounding fact that this small town in Utah is now fully connected to the fastest Internet speeds in the country.

2020 Press Releases

1. We created an agreement with the City of Clearfield to build a fiber network that is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2022. Clearfield is the 15^th city to join our community-owned fiber network! Read this release for more information.  
2. Early this year we announced that we reached an agreement with the City of West Point City to build a fiber-to-the-home network. West Point City, Utah was completely built-out and connected to UTOPIA Fiber- in just 15 months! Read our press release for more information about the project.
3. We announced the completion of Layton City’s fiber project this year, which connected their nearly 80,000 residents and businesses to our fiber network. Layton was among the first cities in Utah—and in the nation—to be fully connected to fiber.
4. This April, we announced that we completed Morgan City’s build-out, in just five months! And, because of intense subscriber demand, we were able to cover all bond payments and operating expenses in a record eight weeks.
5. As part of our Smart City Innovation Lab initiative, we announced earlier this year that we are beta testing a new wildfire detection program, running off of our fiber network, called the EDWIN Project. Read our press release about the project for more information.

Our Favorite Blog posts of 2020

1. Have you been wondering how your coworkers are using funny and creative zoom backgrounds, and, at this point, you’re too afraid to ask how? Here’s our guide for how to use virtual backgrounds on Zoom.
2. UTOPIA Fiber customers have two companies working together to provide your lightning-fast Internet speeds: us and your Internet Service Provider. Read this blog for a breakdown of who you should contact when you have questions about your service.
3. Now that the Internet is your lifeline for talking with friends and family, getting work done, and using telemedicine, your Wi-Fi signal has never been more important. Check out our tips to make sure you’re getting the most out of your Wi-Fi signal.
4. Cities throughout Utah are becoming smarter, and we’re using our advanced fiber-optic network to make that possible! Click this link to learn about the Smart City technology our Innovation Lab is currently working on.
5. We’ve all spent a lot of time online this year, more time than ever, according to recent studies. But what websites get the most traffic? Check out this list to see the 15 most visited websites this year.

Our New Vlog

We get a lot of questions about how we install fiber to a resident’s home, so we started a Residential fiber Installation series on our YouTube channel to show you exactly how we do what we do!

1. When you sign up for UTOPIA Fiber, we call Blue Stakes on your behalf to mark the lines in your yard before we dig to install the conduit that our fiber runs through. In the first vlog of our series, we explain how Locate Technicians mark and locate lines underground. And check out the accompanying blog post that breaks things down step-by-step.
2. This month, we tagged along with our conduit crew as they installed conduit to connect a residential home to UTOPIA Fiber. Check out the vlog and blog to see how it all works.
3. Next up: Now that the conduit is placed at this home, our team will come in and run fiber through the conduit into this home. We’ll be showing you how we do that in our next video. Subscribe to our channel to make sure you don’t miss it!

Thanks for sticking with us through this crazy year. Keep checking our Twitter, Facebook, and News page for more updates, and reach out to us at communications@utopiafiber.com if you have any questions.