No preview available
FiberNet Advisory Board Minutes 08-15-2012MINUTES FIBERNET MONTICELLO ADVISORY BOARD MEETING 2 °d Wednesday, August 15, 2012 — 6 p.m. Floor Conference Room, Prairie Center Building Present: Clint Herbst, Glen Posusta, Wayne Mayer, Dennis Sullivan Absent: Jon Morphew Others: Jeff O'Neill, Mark Pultusker, Paul Ruffin, Lynn Dahl Fleming, Justin Miller, Ken Booth 1. Call to Order Clint Herbst called the Advisory Board Meeting to order at 6:02 p.m. 2. Additions to Agenda None 3. Consideration of Approval of Meeting Minutes — July 10, 2012 WAYNE MAYER MOVED TO APPROVE THE REGULAR MEETING MINUTES FROM JULY 10, 2012 AS PRESENTED. GLEN POSUSTA SECONDED THE MOTION. MOTION CARRIED 4 -0. 4. FiberNet Operations • Update on policy changes related to Customer Service • Change of hours • Weekend coverage results and possible PT CSR for nights /weekends • One phone number on billings Officially changed hours to 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. by phone /internet with reduced office hours; this information will be included in next billing. Dispatch system in place and well received; covers night and weekend hours. Looking to hire a PT position for a CSR for night and weekend service calls; may hire someone in another location. Have switched to one number for all calls: 314 -0100. • Channel 6 policy for commercial accounts — wireless wifi for businesses for $25 a month on top of internet service; they can offer added service to their customers. Set up policy to limit to non - profit and government with no commercial advertising. Want to set up new channel to offer time to businesses to provide information, such as hospital program, state of the city address. • Technical challenges — had a 2 hour outage the other day when they were trying to correct a problem with video by rebooting a device about 5 p.m., which created a number of customer phone calls. • Video conferencing system — today's meeting is a trial with Mark from the Head - end Building; it is working but needs some fine tuning. • Approve billing rate for special services — Mark Pultusker talked about how they are handling calls where the problem is due to customer neglect. Customers are notified in advance that there may be charges with the rate at $70 /hour plus materials. FiberNet Advisory Board Minutes —August 15, 2012 5. Update on Gigabit Squared /FNM Outreach Efforts • Management Contract with FiberConnect — Jeff O'Neill mentioned that the contract will be brought to Council on August 27th for approval. Jeff O'Neill is working with Attorney Joel Jamnick to work out the details of the contract. FiberConnect would serve as the management company and work together with Gigabit Squared on the overall project. Glen Posusta asked Mark Pultusker if FiberConnect is his company, which he confirmed. Mark Pultusker noted that HBC is working on filing a tariff with the PUC related to late fee charges. This is required as phone service is part of the service offering. First time would waive late fee and then after that they would be charged. If customer does not pay late fees, they will be included in next billing. • "Meet Your Headend" event — looking at hosting this event around the 3rd weekend of September. This will follow some upgrades to take care of a number of issues. Each week, they are holding conference calls with the vendors involved and this includes HBC. • Marketing and PR Campaign • TDS Video initiative — now offering IP TV (video) • Charter Phone initiative — offering phone service as of July 31St • Subscriber Advisory Committee — Mark Pultusker suggests implementing a group made up of customers that can address concerns and recommendations that come from the FiberNet system. • Local programming — Mark Pultusker talked about plans for an initiative to put together a studio with video equipment. They would like to create videos that feature local events and activities. Gigabit Squared is working on this and would secure the necessary equipment. • Questions: • Jeff O'Neill asked Mark Pultusker to talk about current status of system and whether there are upcoming needs to purchase equipment or perform diagnostics on the system to continue to overcome problems. Mark Pultusker said he would continue to bring in needed equipment to use for tracking problems with the system • Glen Posusta asked about customer numbers. Mark Pultusker said he does need to bring the group up to date. He noted that there have been slight increases in customers the last 2 months. • Glen Posusta asked Mark Pultusker about charges billed from HBC and wondered if that was continuing. Mark Pultusker that is no longer in effect when the contract with HBC ends. • Mark Pultusker commented that they plan to implement a new billing system in November. It appears the charges would be similar to the current contract when the City moves to FiberConnect. FiberNet Advisory Board Minutes — August 15, 2012 6. Bond Restructuring Efforts and Status Report Jeff O'Neill explained that the City is still working through the process. At a recent meeting, they met with bond attorneys to review options that could be offered for restructuring debt. The goal is to meet in mid September and begin discussions. The trustee representative feels that the system is operating as well as it can right now and is a solid operation. 7. Other • NCTC Application — Mark Pultusker said they are working on new application and it is looking pretty positive to be accepted this time. NCTC has indicated they would have an answer by September 15tH Danville, VA Broadband Conference (Nov 8 -9t) — Jeff O'Neill noted that this conference would probably be a good conference to consider attending. Good opportunities for networking at a cost of $95 (early bird) plus travel costs. Jeff O'Neill suggested that some of the board members might find it a good one to attend. 8. Next Meeting — September 11, 2012 9. Adjourn WAYNE MAYER MOVED TO ADJOURN THE MEETING AT 6:44 P.M. DENNIS SULLIVAN SECONDED THE MOTION. MOTION CARRIED 4 -0. Recorder: Catherine M. Shuman L Approved: November 20, 2012 Attest: y ministrator FiberNet Advisory Board Minutes — August 15, 2012