But now that the city's fiber-optic network has reached that benchmark - a year later than predicted - it is as far from self-sufficiency as it was in 2003.

"It's as if we are running in a marathon and we reach the 25-mile marker and think we've almost made it and then learn that we're in a 50-mile race," City Councilman Steve Turley said. What iProvo needs, he believes, is a change in direction.

However, Mayor Lewis Billings remains confident that iProvo eventually will work out its bugs and become an example of an innovative way to bring broadband Internet to the public.

"This project is successful," Billings said. "There are some people who don't want it to succeed. They don't believe in it, they don't want to believe in it, and they don't want it to be successful."

Provo's goal was to provide a system that would give residents an alternative to Qwest or Comcast for telephone, television and high-speed Internet service. While the city initially planned to provide service on the system, the Legislature changed the law, limiting Provo to laying the cable and leasing the network to service providers.

Subscribers can get services through either Mstar or Nuvont, providers that were brought in after the city severed its agreement with HomeNet Communications in 2005. Billings confirmed that HomeNet is now under investigation after allegedly using a forged letter of credit to secure the iProvo contract.

Bruce Riddle, iProvo's business manager, said the network had 10,054 subscribers as of Sept. 20, but it remains far from self-sufficient.

The city already has funneled more than $2 million in surplus funds to meet iProvo's bond payments, and the system won't reach self-sufficiency until 2012, when there should be 18,000 subscribers, Turley and Councilman George Stewart said.

Stewart, a former Provo mayor, said the problem is in the wholesale model, which hobbles the city's ability to market the system to residents.

The fact that new subscribers are not flocking to the system at the projected rate of 60 new customers a month gives Turley little confidence that the system will work unless there is a major change. He said the city is signing up only 14 new customers a month.

Turley said there are similarities between iProvo and the Iraq war - in that the leaders are sticking to a course of action that has not produced success. He said the city needs to consider bringing in an outside business consultant who can review iProvo and suggest change. He said Provo also needs to consider lobbying the Legislature to change the law so the city can provide service and recoup its iProvo investment.

But Billings said shifting the state law is not an option. He said the time for that was four years ago, so the city has to live with the statute.

Rather than see iProvo as a failure, Billings sees it as a bold step into the future and a challenge to the telephone and cable industry's stranglehold on telecommunications.

While there are short-term flaws, Billings said iProvo will reap long-term benefits in making the city economically viable in an exploding information age.

Turley said the fact Billings did not tell the council about the problems with HomeNet's letter of credit further erodes his confidence in the mayor's vision for iProvo. He said the information was not given to the council until after the 2005 election.

Billings said the council was not told immediately because the city administration did not have concrete evidence at that time and did not want to risk releasing the information prematurely. He also defended the city's decision to not verify the letter of credit when it was presented because it appeared that HomeNet had an arrangement with the bank in question.

dmeyers@sltrib.com