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West Valley City Offers Free Phone Service to Residents If Fiber Network Expands

West Valley City has partnered with telephone service provider Ooma to provide free phone service to users of the city’s fiber-optic network.

The agreement will allow West Valley City to provide free telephone service to it’s residents, but only if the city decides to move forward with another proposal by private investment firm Macquarie Capitol. They’re seeking to expand the city’s fiber optic network to every resident. Under the proposed deal, residents would pay an $18 - $20 monthly utility fee and in return would receive a fiber connection to their home and access to free basic internet from a selection of private internet service providers.

West Valley City Manager Wayne Pyle says the Ooma phone deal is dependent upon the Macquarie deal because they want to be able to offer this to every resident ubiquitously.

“This is not about the phone," he says. "This is about access to a fiber, one gig capable service network that enables services and accesses to services in ways that we haven’t even imagined before.”

West Valley City is one of three members of the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency, better known as UTOPIA, that have moved to Milestone 2 of the Macquarie proposal. Several of the other 11 member cities are still holding open public meetings about the issue and will hold votes on whether or not to proceed later this month.

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