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FiberNet Advisory Board Agenda Packet 08-13-2014AGENDA FIBERNET MONTICELLO ADVISORY BOARD MEETING WEDNESDAY, August 13, 2014 — 6 p.m. Boom Island Room, Monticello Community Center Members: Clint Herbst, Glen POsllsta, Jon Morphew, Wayne Mayer, Dennis Sullivan Others: Jeff O'Neill, Rachel Leonard, Dan Olsen 1. Call to Order 2. Additions to Agenda 3. Approval of Meeting Minutes — March I l and June 10, 2014 4. Management Update • Current Structure • Candidate Posting Options 5. Network update. ® Video Platform Migration Status • Email server • Transport and Core Network Update • 511 Inet Peering • Inside Plant ® C7 to E7 Migration • l OG Ring • EnventislVerizon 6. Operations update • FiberNet Business • Chamber Event Attendance • Budget 7. Miscellaneous • Minnesota Public Broadband Alliance Update • Annandale RFP Update • Pricing 8. Next Meeting — Tuesday, September 9, 2014 9. Adjourn MINUTES FIBERNET MONTICELLO ADVISORY BOARD MEETING Tuesday, June 10, 2014 — 6 p.m. Boom Island Room, Monticello Community Center Members Present: Clint Herbst, Glen Posusta, Jon Morphew, Members Absent: Wayne Mayer, Dennis Sullivan Also Present: Jeff O'Neill, Brian Estrem, Rachel Leonard, I1_leana 1. Call to Order Chair Clint Herbst called the meeting to order at 6 p.m. 2. Additions to Agenda • FAB membership 3. Approval of Meeting Minutes — May 13, 2014 JON MORPHEW MOVED TO ACCEPT THE MAY 13, 2014 MEETING MINUTES AS WRITTEN. GLEN POSUSTA SECONDED THE MOTION. MOTION CARRIED 3-0. 4. Source One migration update Brian Estrem reported that Source One billing system is working fine with one or two calls per week from customers. Fine tuning of the system is nearly complete. 5. Network update Brian Estrem reported as follows: • Video Platform Status & service issue update o Stability of terrestrial channels improved. Would like to turn up channels that are available via terrestrial o Improve signal capture for channels that are being obtained from satellite dish • Email server o Email transition to email server underway • DNS server o Resides in Windom - key accomplishment • DHCP server • Transport and Core Network modifications to be installed by July 4' with installlation of E7's after that. Proposed to purchase equipment necessary to complete installation. Cost of $13,500 to be offset by sale of receivers that are no longer necessary. i FiberNet Advisory Board Meeting Minutes — June 10, 2014 JON MORPHEW MOVED TO PURCHASE E7 EQUIPMENT AND SELL TEN RECEIVERS TO FUND SWITCHES FOR E7 EQUIPMENT. CLINT HERBST SECONDED THE MOTION. MOTION CARRIED 3-0. Jeff O'Neill will provide an update on this via the Council Connection (green sheet). 6. Operations update Discussion included: • Walk in hours • Tech Support • Paragon/sales • Future staffing — Brian noted that we are not able to find a part time locator which means one of our installers is tied up on locates. There are a large number of locates this summer due to I-94 project. We may be losing customers due to install time frame being too far out. CLINT HERBST MOVED TO HIRE AN INSTALLER AND WORK WITH DAN OLSEN AT WINDOMNET TO FIND AN ADDITIONAL INSTALLER TO BRING ON IF NEEDED. GLEN POSUSTA SECONDED THE MOTION. MOTION CARRIED 3-0. 7. Other: • It was the consensus of the group to send Wayne Mayer a letter asking he wants to remain on the board. 8. Next Meeting — July 15, 2014 in the Boom .Island Room 9. Adjourn JON MORPHEW MOVED TO ADJOURN AT 7:20 P.M. GLEN POSUSTA SECONDED THE MOTION. MOTION CARRIED 3-0. Meeting Notes provided by board liaison. Approved: Attest: City Administrator 21 FiberNet Advisory Board Meeting Minutes —June 10, 2014 Cathy Shuman From: Jeff O'Neill Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2014 4:24 PM To: Cathy Shuman Cc: FiberNet Bryan Rabe; Rachel Leonard; Dan Olsen Subject: FW: Where you able to get that quick summary of projects put together for tonight's meeting? Attachments: image(8).jpg Cathy - Please print 7 copies of this awesome report and picture for distribution to the FAB at the meeting tonight. Thanks Bryan for preparing this information! From: Bryan Rabe [maiIto:brabe@fibernetmonticello.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2014 4:15 PM To: Jeff O'Neill Cc: Rachel Leonard Subject: Re: Where you able to get that quick summary of projects put together for tonight's meeting? adding picture On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 4:13 PM, Bryan Rabe <brabelernetmonticello.com> wrote: Video: We have migrated roughly 135 channels off receivers to the Vubiquity fiber feed. Stability has been great, with much less digitizing and greater uptime We have also moved off an over the air (OTA) box that Mark Pultusker implemented, back to the old way it was before Mark. WE have seen very noticeable picture quality improvements along with MUCH better stability and less digitizing. We will be moving more channels to the fiber feed, as we work on converting all the contracts for the fiber feed. This should be non -service affecting. Email -email is still working, Dan O is working on making sure all the data can be saved. Internet- Dan O is working on moving our other circuit at 511, there is mass confusion as to who actually owns it. Thats the hold up there. We are targeting late next week to do the peering and new router/switch upgrade. Shortly after that we will do the internet upgade(100m), my guess is though people will notice the latency upgrade immediately. The internet will now be faster than anyone here has even seen. I have been working on racking and making ready these new pieces of equipment. Great pains have been taken to make everything a perfect as possible. I have attached a photo of it. This will be Monticello's new network. It will go from 3 racks of equipment to 1, and look exceptional to boot. I finally got all the city buildings cut over from the C7 to the E7 for their gigabit backbone. Here is an excerpt from my email Showing the trials and tribulations: Just wanted to touch base with you about what we discussed a week or two back at the Head End about upgrading the city to be able to use their gigabit capacity. Its been a long road to get to this point so I though I should fill you in. 1. The city's Calix E7 was on the first revision of software that Calix made for this box. So in order to get current, I had to go though many software loads, it wasn't one and done upgrade (it was actually 4 full upgrades, all done out of hours as to not disrupt business). After that was done, It fixed some issues you were having and that was great but it broke our management software we use to communicate with it, so it basically put your E7 off the grid because of old the management software was. 2. So it was upgrade management software time (CMS), once again we were stuck with so old of a version, that a single upgrade would not make us current. We had 3 full revisions( full database back/restores, new clients, etc) we had to hop though to get to current, however after after the second revision upgrade, Calix changed memory requirements, and wouldn't you know.. we were short. So new memory was ordered(which turned out to be a giant debacle, but no need to get into that). Tuesday morning of this week, I came in early to do a painless memory upgrade, which turned out to be far from painless. This is the first time this server has been powered down since setup (maybe 5 years), and on reboot after the successful memory install, CMS hung with a permissions error and shut down. After nearly a day on the phone with Calix and Calix bringing in multiple people because no one could figure out who/what/where/why they did a temporary fix to get this thing up far enough to try and install the newest version. Actually the new version(Ca1_ix's most current) installed fine and we were off and running. 3. Getting the E7 configured how we spoke about it.. Well it wasn't much after the CMS install, that I found configuring the new ONT's that will be at the City locations not configuring properly. A quick look revealed none other than ancient firmware on the ONT's, and I think you can realize where this is going... I worked on it a few hours before I gave up and called Calix. Calix proceeded to work on this trying to figure it out, again calling in many people and at the end of the day it turned out to be many issues, but the main one being a lacking of a management vlan allowing these ONT's to come and talk back with CMS. That then brought me down the road of configuring the beast of our core switch the 4507. I was able to get the configured, ONT's would take their configurations, and all was good, we can now proceed..or so I thought. 4. Upon configuring the ONT's I ran into another issue with giving them the 1 gig. They wouldn't take more than 200m of bandwidth, and here we are again with Calix and myself stumped. Calix is currently looking into the situation, I may have a "work around" that uses new indoor ONT's that we have here. I say "work around" because its not using the ONT's that are in place( in the buildings currently), not because is a cheap, or a thrown together thing. The indoor ONT is far and above better than anything we have currently deployed at fibernet. I will be testing the indoor ONT this afternoon, first trials look like you can give these guys 1 gig of bandwidth. If I was betting I would say the ONT's we have are to old to support the 1 gig. Which I wonder how they ever thought they could get you a gig with anyway, all these firmware upgrades (E7, and ONT) I have been doing have enabled this, it was not even an option up until literally yesterday. 5. Having some down time with this project yesterday with calix looking into things, I was able to start really digging into the city network. After more head shakes, and how's than I can count. I started breaking it down, into conquerable segments. I started yesterday with something simple a speedtest. My speedtest netted me about 20/20, ok thats my starting point. As I started to break down, the locations I was able to break down the links those locations used, I took note of those and here they are: On the E7 you have 2 ONT's, and 1 cats uplink from your switch in the HE here to get your city vlan to the E7. E7 city hall ONT---- l Omeg TLS E7 public works ----- I Omeg TLS E7 uplink ------------ I Omeg TLS Infact there was only one profile on the E7 and that was for 10/10 City Hall -This city hall ONT was very interesting, I showed a 100m TLS, 20m internet, 50m internet and 100m internet. All these were passing data, and up. Liquor Store ----20m TLS IMV -----20m TLS Ball Fields 20m TLS I found that there has never even been a 100m TLS profile ever built on the first C7-1, so I built that and did some testing. I then provisioned all the City ONT's with 100m TLS, but was still being throttled to 20m. I started to poke around with unlabeled ports on the Cities ONT and found an unlabeled 20m internet port and it had a bunch of Doug's static ip's on it. With Brian E's permission we upgraded your internet speed to l 00meg and ran another speed test. 80/40 was the result, and you should be able to feel that. I feel there is more we can get out of it but I think it is a good start in the right direction of getting the city its proper speeds. I will keep you updated on progress, but this is where we stand today. Thanks for your patience. This is not an all-inclusive list of the activities performed.. We continue to mitigate trouble issues and make great strides in bringing this network to a carrier class operation. All hands are on deck. On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 3:32 PM, Jeff O'Neill <Jeff. Oneill(d�ci.monticello.mn.us> wrote: If its possible for you to attend, that would be great. If not due to short notice I understand. I think in the future it would be great for you to attend the meetings. Thanks. Jeff O'Neill City Administrator City of Monticello, MN 763-271-3215 Bryaii. Rabe Lead Install Technician brabeRfibernetmonticello.com 761-11,4-0107 01 FIBERNET fiArvan/ f • P�. I ` u NEAT -MCN. • NEAT -PATCH. NE 3 _ NEAT PATCN , F NEAT-PATCN„ Li s . • � s f �, M Blandin Foundation - STRENGTHENING RURAL MINNESOTA Blandin Foundation awards grant to the MSL G uhft Broadband AMance for broadband collaboration study GRAND RAPIDS, Minn (July 24, 2014) — Blandin Foundation announced today that it has awarded six grants totaling $123,190 that assist rural Minnesota communities in advancing high-speed Internet access and use in their communities, including a grant to address the high cost of broadband in rural Minnesota. The MN Public Broadband Alliance will research and review the benefits of creating a technology partnership to improve delivery of broadband services and maximize broadband use by member communities, with support of a $10,000 Blandin Foundation grant. "The joining of communities to help pursue the goal of broadband service to all of Minnesota is a natural evolution", said Dan Olsen, General Manager of Windomnet." The wealth of knowledge amongst the communities that can be shared and leveraged is astounding. " The project will look at how a technology alliance could satisfy the common needs of publically financed broadband networks. The MPBA will identify other regional technology alliances that could guide their effort, while also evaluating the potential for member communities to serve as mentors for additional communities wanting to increase their broadband capabilities. "Rural leaders know that connected communities are vibrant communities," said Dr. Kathleen Annette, CEO of Blandin Foundation. "We are delighted to see the City of Monticello pull together resources to plan for access to — and use of — high-speed Internet so critical to work and life today." Since making rural broadband use and access a focus in 2003, Blandin Foundation has partnered with leaders in more than 69 communities and 106 organizations across the state to support sustainable broadband adoption to enhance quality of life and place. About Blandin Foundation: Blandin Foundation works for vibrant rural Minnesota communities by investing in community leaders and working with partners to expand opportunity for all residents. Located in Grand Rapids, Minn., it is one of only a handful of foundations in the U.S. focused exclusively on rural communities and the largest rural -based private foundation in Minnesota. Information on Blandin Foundation grant -making, leadership development programs and public policy initiatives: www.blandinfoundatiori.org. Media contacts: Blandin Foundation Allison Ahcan, Director of Communications T: 218-327-8717 C: 218-259-2893 arahcan@blandinfoundation.org Blog: http://outposts.blandinfoundation.org and www. bland inonbroad band.org Twitter: @BlandinFound Facebook: www.facebook.com/BlandinFoundation JoAnne Johnson, Minnesota Public Broadband Alliance ioanneciohnson@broad bandventures.net I Charter Members Windomnet Dan Olsen Dano@windomnet.com Forrest Forsheim forrest.forsheim@swsc.org Monticello Fibernet Jeff O'Neill Jeff.Oneill@ci.monticello.mn.us Rachel Leonard Rachel. Leonard @ci.monticel lo.mn.us SMBS Keith Stubbe tunesrus@iw.ne- St. Cloud Micah Myers micah.myers@ci.stcloud.mn.us Scott County Gary Shelton gshelton@co.scott.mn.us Staff JoAnne Johnson loanneciohnson@broad bandventures. net Advisory Brian Estrem Potential new members, pending their approval: True North Broadband Joe Buttweiler ibuttweiler@arrowhead.coop Lake Connections Jeff Roiland iroiland@lakeconnections.com ti Section 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code provides for the exemption of business leagues, chambers of commerce, real estate boards, boards of trade and professional football leagues, which are not organized for profit and no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. A business league is an association of persons having some common business interest, the purpose of which is to promote such common interest and no', to engage it a regular business of a kind ordinarily- carried rdinarilycarried on for profit. Trade associations and professional associations are business leagues. To be exempt, a business league's activities must be devoted to improving business conditions of one or more lines of business as distinguished from performing particular services for individual persons. No part of a business league's net earnings may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual and it may not be organized for profit to engage in an activity ordinarily carried on for profit (even if the business is operated on a cooperative basis or produces only enough income to be self-sustaining). The term line of business generally refers either to an entire industry or to all components of an industry within a geographic area. It does not include a group composed of businesses that market a particular brand within an industry. Chambers of commerce and boards of trade are organizations of the same general type as business leagues. They direct their efforts at promoting the common economic interests of all commercial enterprises in a trade or community, however. 501(c)(6) Business and Professional Org. Tipsheet Business leagues, chambers of commerce, real-estate boards, boards of trade, or professional football leagues (whether or not administering a pension fund for football players), not organized for profit and no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. - Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(6) Exemption Application - Form 1024, including Schedule C (current form is dated 9/98) - $400 for organizations with gross receipts normally $10,000 or less; $850 for larger organizations (Small automatically -revoked organizations seeking reinstatement may be eligible for a reduced fee of $100 under Transitional Relief rules until 12/31/2012) - Submit fee using Form 8718 - There is no filing deadline for a 501(c)(6) application. Annual filing - Gross receipts normally less than $50,000 - file Form 990-N - Gross receipts normally less than $200,000 - file Form 990 -EZ - Gross receipts normally more than $200,000 - file Form 990 - Check instructions: an organization's assets can also affect which form must be filed Caution An organization that fails to file a required return for three years in a row will have its exempt status automatically revoked. Basic Rules - To qualify, an organization must be primarily engaged in promoting the common business interests of the members through exchange of information, continuing education, labor negotiations, lobbying or similar -, e4- 4-t.,. 0%_LI V IIICJ - 501(c)(6) organizations may not allow any part of their net earnings to inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual - Specific services that merely provide a convenience or economy to individual members in their businesses are not qualifying activities - Donations are not deductible as charitable contributions, but dues or similar amounts may be deductible as a business expense - Larger organizations may be required to disclose that contributions are not deductible in their solicitation materials - (c)(6)s usually cannot qualify for the special low -rate non-profit bulk mailing permit. Lobbying - 501(c)(6) organizations are permitted to have unlimited amounts of legislative activity as long as it is in furtherance of the exempt purpose. - In some cases, (c)(6)s may be required to notify members that a portion of dues is not deductible because of lobbying carried on by the organization. Organizations may elect to pay a proxy tax instead of making this notification. Political Activity - Political activity is permitted, but cannot be the organization's primary purpose, and will in most cases incur a penalty tax. - In some cases, (c)(6)s may be required to notify members that a portion of dues is not deductible because of political expenditures made by the organization. Organizations may elect to pay a proxy tax instead of making this notification. Examples - Professional associations - Trade associations - Chambers of commerce - Convention and visitors bureaus - Better business bureaus - Business and professional women's clubs Links - Information about points of intersection between business leagues and the IRS. Life Cycle of a Business League. - IRS Publication 557, Tax Exempt Status for Your Organization - Business leagues organizations are the third most common type of 501(c) organizations after 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4). There are many Exempt Organizations Continuing Professional Education articles on social welfare yap ��a�� . �C LCA- way o access these is through the Exempt Organizations CPE Topical Index. - IRC 501(c)(6) Organizations, 2003 Exempt Organizations Continuing Professional Education Technical Instruction Program, Topic I. This is the most recent CPE article. - Compliance Guide for Tax-Exempt Organizations [Other than 501(c)(3)s] - Section 7.25.6 of the Internal Revenue Manual CITY OF 111! ` rp August 7, 2014 Kelly 4mi enkamp City Administrator 30 Cedar Street East, PO Box K Annandale, MN 55302 Dear Ms. Hinnenkamp, MI/ PHONE: 763-295-2711 Pnx:763-295-4404 505 Walnut Street I Suite 11 Monticello, MN 55362 On behalf of the City of Monticello, I am pleased to submit a proposal to the City of Annandale for working in partnership to install, maintain, and operate a fiber optic network that will serve the residents, businesses, institutions, and public facilities within the Annandale community. The proposal includes service to the area within the city limits and is expandable to the Greater Annandale area. Monticello, as a sister city in Wright County, is uniquely poised with existing physical and human infrastructure necessary to provide operational support to Annandale in a cost efficient and effective manner. Monticello looks forward to the prospect of assisting Annandale in deploying and operating a world class, fiber -based telecommunications system delivered to its citizens and businesses as a public utility. Further, Monticello truly appreciates the opportunity to utilize its capacity in helping Annandale realize the benefits such as great local service and price controls that come from delivery of this essential service by those that have the best interest of the community in mind. Enclosed please find an original of the proposal. Copies of the proposal are included in a separate envelope as instructed. Thank you for reviewing the proposal and I look forward to your response. Jeff O'Neill City Administrator 505 Walnut Street, Suite 1 Monticello, MN 55362 Jeff-oneiH@ci.monticello.mn.us www.ci.monticel lo.mn.us of�J�J! 1 Prepared By: Service Provider Partner Request for Proposal August 8th, 2014 CITYfOF M014FIBERN 1 a�a� Service Provider Partner— Request for Proposal FiberNet, City of Monticello TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.......................................................................................... 3 2.0 SCOPE OF SERVICES.............................................................................................. 4 3.0 GENERAL PROJECT REQUIREMENTS................................................................... 5 4.0 QUALIFICATIONS OF VENDOR.............................................................................. 5 5.0 DETAIL OF EQUIPMENT AND STAFF..................................................................... 6 6.0 EXPECTATIONS OF CITY BY VENDOR.................................................................... 6 7.0 EXPERIENCE............................................................... see ......... *so ............... *as .........*so 6 Service Provider Partner — Request for Proposal FiberNet, City of Monticello LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL (See attached) 1.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FiberNet Monticello finds itself in the ideal position to provide services to the City of Annandale as an operating partner. FiberNet has been operating a triple -play FTTP network that has become one of the most competitive broadband markets in the country. Certainly there has been a lot of press regarding our network, good and bad, but in the end we know we made the right decision for our community. The savings passed on to residents and businesses equates to millions of dollars, and the services offered are the gold standard of the industry. Municipalities interested in delivering broadband services to their community have many obstacles ahead of diem. Who better to partner with than a like-minded municipal broadband provider that has lived through all the trials and tribulations this industry brings? FiberNet currently delivers service to 1500 subscribers or about 33% of our residents and businesses. Competitive pricing and strong marketing by Charter and TDS have kept our penetration rates below desired levels, but our community is the ultimate benefactor of low cost/high value services. The City of Monticello also benefits from this because more of the money that would have gone to high cost/low value services now stays in our community, which creates an environment promoting economic development. FiberNet understands that quality broadband has become an essential service for businesses and residents in our communities. It appears that Annandale has no option other than to'build their own infrastructure to deliver these essential services. The option to bring in an operating partner and benefit from the experience of FiberNet is an excellent option which we would be pleased to provide. FiberNet has also spearheaded an effort to create a Minnesota Public Broadband Alliance with other public broadband providers. We -believe this is a critical step in our region to ensure the success of cities like Annandale and others that are considering a similar path for quality broadband services in their communities. FiberNet has already started an alliance with Windomnet and Southwest Minnesota Broadband Services (SMBS). Together we have made great progress sharing resources and minimizing costs to deliver even better services. This is the core concept of the Minnesota Public Broadband Alliance: to share resources, costs, and best practices; to deliver high quality broadband; and to ensure the best value for our subscribers. FiberNet's proximity and ability to deliver and support 100 megabit (MB) broadband services in your community would be an easy extension to our existing network. With little competition in Annandale for quality broadband, we believe Annandale has a great opportunity that would be enhanced with FiberNet as an operating partner. This is a very similar situation to Windomnet and the eight towns that are now part of SMBS. FiberNet's alliance with Wimdomnet and SMBS brings their experience to the table as well. 3 Service Provider Partner — Request for Proposal FiberNet, City of Monticello 2.0 SCOPE OF SERVICES Proposed Partnership: FiberNet would continue to explore a business model to provide all transport, internet service, operational support, and service capable of delivering 100 MB (or greater) symmetrical internet service. A preliminary business model for 50 MB and 100 MB services has already been provided to the City of Annandale. FiberNet would be the preferred service provider for Annandale, receiving a per subscriber fee of approximately $21 per subscriber based on current assumptions. Network Planning and Design: FiberNet would work with the City of Annandale to review the current build model to ensure feasibility of the network and business model currently under consideration prior to funding. Once an engineering firm is selected, FiberNet would consider a project management role to assist the city through the build, installation, turn up of the network, and subscriber installation to ensure a smooth transition for operations and service. Fiber Build and Ownership: The City of Annandale would be responsible for all capital expenditures pertaining to the engineering, construction, FTTP access network, and outside plant maintenance and repair. FiberNet has provided Annandale with preliminary business models based on various take rates. We would continue to review these models with Annandale to ensure a mutual understanding of all assumptions and associated costs in the partnership. Services: Service pricing for 50 MB and 100 MB services has been provided in the current business models provided to Annandale. FiberNet would propose to deliver and support these services for a fee of approximately $21 per subscriber. FiberNet would continue to work with Annandale on the business model to ensure the business model and funding are sustainable. FiberNet would be a preferred provider for internet service and could bring in other vendors to provide additional over -the -top IP services. FiberNet currently has a strategic relationship with a vendor to provide security, data center, cloud services, and additional virtual services to complement our core service offerings primarily to our business customers. Network Operations: FiberNet staff, customer service representatives (GSRs) and technicians would provide the same level of support for Annandale subscribers that they provide in Monticello. Annandale's proximity provides a very cost effective solution for service delivery. GSRs would take phone and email requests for sales and service through our helpdesk and assign work to the appropriate staff. Cost for additional staff is included in the model provided to Annandale. Network Maintenance: Daily maintenance, such as locating, would be most cost effective if provided by Annandale's locators. Outside plant (OSP) network infrastructure replacement and repair would be coordinated by FiberNet staff. Service Provider Partner —Request for Proposal FiberNet, City of Monticello Annandale would be responsible for labor and capital for these expenditures. Examples of this might be the replacement of a pedestal, cut fiber, or the placement of a new drop. These assumptions have been built into the model provided but will need further discussion. Economic Benefit: Highly reliable and future -proof fiber speed offered at prices governed by the local government (and not shareholders) will have significant economic impact on the community over time. System reliability and access to fiber - based speeds assures peak efficiency for processes that require data transfer, thereby enabling employees to work at peak potential. Assurance of affordability resulting from prices governed by the community results in a cost saving resource that is affordable for all businesses, big or small. Providing a precise measurement of economic gain in terms of creation of new jobs and rate of pay resulting from the presence of high speed data services provided in affordable fashion is difficult to pinpoint. However, it is self-evident that improved efficiencies and cost savings over time will result in an enhanced setting for economic development within the community and provide Annandale businesses with a competitive advantage. Ca aci : The network architecture would be FTTH GPON. Symmetrical bandwidth up to 1 Gigabit (GB) would be available to all residents and businesses. The model provided to Annandale assumes 50 MB and 100 MB offerings to the residents and businesses. Fine tuning of service pricing and costs would be defined in a final model and contract. 3.0 GENERAL PROJECT REQUIREMENTS The City of Monticello, as a municipality, is very familiar with the general project requirements identified in the request for proposal and is capable of full compliance. The City of Monticello, working in partnership with Annandale, will employ its expertise to assist in acquisition of grant resources or other financial and physical assets necessary to make the project a success. 4.0 OuAmncAnoNs OF VENDOR FiberNet Monticello has been providing triple play broadband services for four years in one of the most competitive markets in the United States. Without the competition FiberNet has in Monticello, it would have most likely provided only internet service. Internet is by far the easiest of the three services to support and the most profitable. Annandale is uniquely positioned to take advantage of their current market and provide internet service. FiberNet is in an excellent position to provide the services and support over Annandale's infrastructure; to create a cost effective solution for Annandale by capitalizing on FiberNet's current assets. This is a win-win solution and supports the Minnesota Public Broadband Alliance that Monticello has initiated. Service Provider Partner — Request for Proposal FiberNet, City of Monticello 5.0 DETAIL OF EOIITPMENT AND STAFF The FiberNet system encompasses a fiber network deployed across the entire City of Monticello; a head -end building (central office) which delivers triple play services of internet, phone, and cable to residents and businesses; and a business office where our customers can walk-in or be served via phone or email. Currently Fibernet is staffed with: General Manager (Interim) — Dan Olsen, Windomnet 3 Customer Service Representatives (GSRs) 1 Sales Associate 3 Service Technicians 1 Central Office Technician 1 Network Architect (Contract) FiberNet would be adding an additional technician and CSR per the model provided to support Annandale. FiberNet would encourage Annandale to tour our operation facilities to see first-hand our network and the employees that would be supporting Annandale. Additional details regarding equipment and staff would continue during contract discussions. 6.0 t+ XPECTATIONS OF CITY BY VENDOR At this point it is assumed that Annandale will incur all network infrastructure costs, capital and labor in the construction and maintenance of the outside plant (OSP) network and electronics. Details of the partnership are open for discussion. Depending on the end solution it's possible that other cities, such as Buffalo, Maple Lake or Clearwater, may have an interest in sharing build costs to receive ultra-high speed broadband connectivity. 7.0 EXPERIENCE The Request for Proposal asks for references of three public agencies served by the proposing vendor. As a department of the City of Monticello, FiberNet has successfully served its home community for a number of years. The experience gained provides a high degree.of confidence that FiberNet will support Annandale in successful fashion. However, it should be noted that access to even broader experience and knowledge is available beyond Monticello's borders. Through a direct association with Windomnet and through participation in an emerging alliance of public broadband providers, FiberNet is already benefitting from an increased knowledge base and sharing of telecommunication resources. It goes without saying that Annandale would benefit from and contribute to this family of public broadband providers through its association with FiberNet. D Service Provider Partner — Request for Proposal FiberNet, City of Monticello In addition to experienced personnel within the organization, FiberNet has utilized the services of Doug Dawson. Mr. Dawson is the owner and president of CCG Consulting. CCG is a successful telecommunications consulting firm with over 700 clients. CCG's clients include ILECS, CLECS, cable companies, ISPs, municipalities, and wireless carriers. Dawson's expertise has been key to the operational success of FiberNet at the outset and his company is looked to for occasional assistance on an nngninfy bs-,k, Dawson has direct experience facilitating the collaborative efforts of cities working together to provide telecommunication services for their constituents. Doug Dawson can be reached at 202.255.7689. The link to the CCG Consulting webpage is: h"://ccgeomm.com/Home LaSe.html. 7