Since his inauguration speech in 1993, Gov. Mike Leavitt has touted the virtues of the "information highway" - a massive interactive communications network that will revolutionize the delivery of everything from education to entertainment.
But the information-highway reality is little more than a back-country dirt road accessible to only a privileged few. For now.US WEST Communications announced Wednesday it will spend $160 million to install the "highway offramps" to bring the information highway to 160,000 homes and businesses in central Salt Lake County.
"This is not something of the future," Leavitt said during a Wednesday press conference. "It is the reality of today."
The announcement was made by Mark W. Stromberg, Utah vice president for US WEST. Salt Lake City joins Boise, Denver, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Portland and Omaha, Neb., as metropolitan areas where the new network will be deployed. A total of 20 will join the network by the end of the year.
In Utah, the network will reach into homes in Midvale and Murray and parts of Sandy, Salt Lake City, South Jordan, South Salt Lake, West Jordan and West Valley City. It also will reach unincorporated areas of Bennion, Taylorsville, East Millcreek, Kearns and Union.
"As the demand for multimedia and interactive services grows, we'll expand the network to cover more of the Salt Lake Valley and the state," Stromberg said. US WEST plans to add 500,000 customers a year in the western United States.
Stromberg said Salt Lake City was chosen for the experiment because of its "strong economy, a solid record of successful introductions of communications services and products, and an improving regulatory climate."
The state already has begun laying the groundwork for its own information highway by linking most high schools in the state with each other and with the state's colleges and universities. By 1996, students will choose from 90 different college courses while still in high school. And students in one college will be able to take specialized courses offered only at other universities.
The state is spending $120 million over the next seven years to link government offices, schools and colleges to the interactive EDNET network that also will allow users to communicate with similar institutions around the world.
The US WEST project takes the next step by taking the technology into private homes and businesses where people will have access to the equivalent of thousands of channels of entertainment and information.
"An electronic highway allows you to access innumerable sources of beneficial information, entertainment and communications services locally, nationally or internationally - all through a combination of voice, data and video over your television or personal computer," Stromberg said.
For example, instead of renting a video at the video store, you will be able to choose from thousands of pay-per-view movies and programs anytime of day or night, and you will be able to play, pause, fast-forward and rewind it at will.
"Other services like home shopping, movies on demand and interactive games will be added," Stromberg said., "while existing applications of telecommuting, telemedicine and distance learning will be enhanced and expanded."
While US WEST is clearly looking at entertainment services as a way to make money, Leavitt cautioned that "to say this is only about movies is like saying Pong is the ultimate in video games. There are thousands of applications."
One of which will be the delivery of news, which will be updated constantly and accessible 24 hours a day. And people will access via telephone lines.
Leavitt praised the US WEST initiative, saying it will put Utah in the position to attract high-tech businesses to Utah and to out-compete other states and nations in the communications arena. The US WEST project, he said, "puts in the fundamental technology for traffic lights" on a much larger information highway.
The first 100,000 US WEST customers - none of them in Utah - should be able to race the information highway by the end of 1994, while Utah customers should begin merging by 1996.