Son of a...

So when Provo decided to sell the country's largest municipally owned fiber communications system to Broadweave earlier this year for $40.6 million there were a lot of questions and concerns.

• The company isn't very big. How are they going to ramp up fast enough to add 1,000 percent more customers?

• Provo is still on the hook if Broadweave collapses. The company is paying off the municipal bonds as they come due, but the city continues to hold them and is ultimately responsible for their payment.

• The bidding process was tainted because there WAS no bidding process. The city says they're on firm legal ground. But this one doesn't pass the stink test.

• What's taking Sorenson Capital so long to do due diligence on their financial backing of the deal?

But here was my biggest question months ago when this first came up:

What in the name of Nigerian millionaires is going to happen to people's e-mail?

We got our answer yesterday. Mstar simply shut the damn thing off.

No warning from either company, no forwarding period and plenty of important e-mails wafting into the ether.

I attempted to contact both companies yesterday to no avail, though Broadweave did return my call early this morning . (Whatever the other complaints, their customer service seems to be shoring up nicely.) The person on the other end of the line told me that a "manager" was trying to reach Mstar to set up some kind of forwarding and transfer of information.

That's all well and good, but here's my new question: If a reporter who hasn't gone to ISP school is asking the question months ago, WHY DIDN'T SOMEONE WHO KNOWS ABOUT THIS CRAP HAVE THIS FIGURED OUT ALREADY?

Disclaimer: I'm an iProvo/Mstar/Broadweave customer expecting a few pretty important e-mails, so I'm a little miffed.