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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBC 2024-06-07Town of Dryden Broadband Committee Meeting Friday, June 7, 2024 – Via Zoom Approved Minutes Attendees Graham Dobson – Broadband Committee Tony Salerno – Broadband Committee Mark Wilson – Broadband Committee Dan Lamb – Town Board Tracy Monell – Gleamon Technology Ryan Garrison – HUNT EAS Kate Morseman – HUNT EAS Jeffrey Smith – Municipal Solutions Andrew Hafner – Netegrity Eric Beckhorn – Clarity Connect Dave Makar – Executive Director Amanda Anderson – Bookkeeper Cassie Byrnes – Confidential Secretary to the Town Supervisor Ray Burger – Planning Director Chuck Bartosch – Point Broadband Doug Schneider – Cortland Standard Dave Makar called the meeting to order at 10:33am. Education, Strategy, and Updates Meeting (Dave Makar) • Introductions – Dave Makar o Ray Burger read the Dryden Fiber Mission Statement aloud: “Our mission is to provide reliable, affordable, high-speed, fiber-based internet access for all Dryden residents. We offer state-of-the-art technology and unmatched customer service.”  Dave Makar asked Ray Burger what the mission statement means to him and Ray responded, “It means that there’s finally an entity that’s realizing the importance of the utility of internet access and is stepping up in an egalitarian way to provide it.” • Meeting Schedule Update/Reminder – Dave Makar o Next meetings are June 21st, July 5th, July 19th, August 2nd, and August 23rd – Dave Makar proposed to move the July meetings to July 12th and July 26th because Town Hall is closed on July 5th in observance of Independence Day, and to move the August meetings to August 9th and August 23rd to keep the meetings at every 2 weeks  Cassie Byrnes will update the meetings on the Town website calendar and will send out Outlook invites to committee members per Graham Dobson’s request • Reporting Meetings – Dave Makar o June 21st – Report on the month of May o July 12th – Report on the month of June o August 9th – Report on the month of July • Reports to Town Board – Dave Makar o Dave Makar met with the Town Board representatives of the Broadband Committee, and they discussed having him make a monthly report to the Town Board  This report will be given at the Town Board 2nd Meeting (held on the 3rd Thursday of each month) on June 20th, July 18th, and August 15th  Moving the Reporting Meetings to the 1st meeting of the month beginning July 12th • Tracy Monell agrees with moving the Reporting Meetings so that the previous months reports are fresher in his mind • ConnectALL Office (CAO – MIP Grant) Updates – Dave Makar o A few months ago, we started with an application where the Town of Dryden, as Dryden Fiber, and the Town of Caroline, work together to apply for funding from the ConnectALL office (this MIP Grant), with a focus on serving all unserved and underserved addresses between the Town of Dryden and Town of Caroline (hundreds of locations across both towns) o The last month has been busy with the ConnectALL Office asking for more details and clarifications o We have been working very closely with the Town of Caroline as well as HUNT Engineering, who is the engineering firm for both the Town of Dryden and the Town of Caroline projects  Dan Lamb, Jason Leifer, and Mark Witmer, Caroline Town Supervisor, have been heavily involved o Nothing has been awarded at this time, but we think it will be soon, and a lot of people around the state will want to be involved in sharing the announcement o Dan Lamb reminded the committee that this MIP money is coming from ARPA, the Fiscal Recovery Act, that passed in early 2021, and that we are on the cusp of a big scale-up of our project o Ryan Garrison added that we don’t know a lot about the start of the project, but we do know that the end of the project is the end of 2026, and this date fits nicely with the work that we currently plan on doing in the upcoming months o The timing is a bit of a forcing function for us to get the work done, and it’s a substantial amount of work (thousands of locations across the Town of Caroline) o Their mission, beyond focusing on local control, is making Dryden Fiber sustainable (we have control over how we operate and charge the fees to make it sustainable) o They also recognize that for this to be sustainable, having more locations is better; By having this combined effort of the Town of Dryden and the Town of Caroline makes the entire Dryden Fiber business more sustainable (through this partnership, the Town of Caroline becomes a customer of Dryden Fiber) o Tracy Monell added that through his experience in Tioga County, the State likes any opportunity for shared services o Dave Makar hopes to hear more information next week, and as soon as we have anything that we can share, we will let you know • Policy Committee – Dave Makar o A bunch of people have volunteered to help, and we had our kick-off meeting earlier this week o Follow-up meeting is scheduled for June 18th o Dave Makar shared the Policy Committee Outline  The focus of this group is to create, review, and implement policies that govern various aspects of Dryden Fiber operations  Once we’ve determined a path of recommendation, the Policy Subcommittee will present the recommendations to the Public Broadband Committee for review  Topics that we started with: • Tenant/Renter/Property Owner policy • Distance from fiber main line to customer’s home/residence policy (currently 500 feet), and what the fee is for that; Business distance to fiber from business building policy • Repair Policy • Residential vs Commercial/Business Customer policy • Plume fees policy  Members: • Dave Makar – Dryden Fiber Executive Director • Shawn Scorzelli – Syracuse Utilities • Amanda Anderson – Town of Dryden • Chuck Bartosch – Clarity Connect • Tony Salerno – Broadband Committee • Jason Leifer – Town Supervisor • Tracy Monell – Gleamon Technology o Graham Dobson asked: “So generally you’ll bring forward whatever the policy is, we’ll get a chance to review that as a whole committee, and then we’ll vote on, or have some sort of input, to say that ‘Oh, yeah, this is what direction we want to go.’ Is that how I’m understanding it?”  Dave Makar responded that the team of 7 people has been doing a lot of brainstorming, idea generating, and research, so that by the time they bring ideas to the Broadband Committee, the policies are ready for recommendation on how we would implement and operate them • Operations Team – Dave Makar o Meeting every other week – Next meetings will be Wednesday, June 12th, June 26th, and July 10th o The Operations Team has two functions:  1. Construction Updates – Where we are going next with the fiber, where we are with permitting, getting ready for sales  2. Actual Installations – Multiple vendors work on installations (from when they are requested, to talking to the customer, to going on site to an installation) so the Operations Team meetings have been powerful to bring these vendors together, figure out what’s going on where, and where we are having challenges • Request for Future Topics – Dave Makar o Graham Dobson asked if we could discuss the outage that occurred, and he would like to understand the topology a little better  Dave Makar answered that we have drafted our initial report, but we still have some more work to do  Graham Dobson said he appreciates, as a customer, that we’re getting updates from Dryden Fiber, something Spectrum could never do  Dave Makar explained that there was an outage due to our primary carrier having their fiber knocked out (somewhere between Syracuse and Rochester); Our carrier sent updates to Netegrity, who then shared updates to our Operations Team and Dave Makar, who then shared updates to with our customers and the Broadband Committee; The outage happened around 1:00pm on Sunday, and was repaired 3 days later on Wednesday morning; Dryden Fiber gets their internet through this provider, Windstream, through the pop on Pinckney Road, which is where our first 40 customers all get their fiber from; On the afternoon of the outage, our network was not a ring, it did not complete all the way into a circle, and did not make use of our secondary source of fiber internet from a different provider, which is located at the DPW (this location is called the CO or Central Office); Our plan, as we talked about the previous Friday was to bring that online and connect this ring that goes two ways into the Town Hall (one from the Village of Freeville, down the rail trail, across West Main in the Village of Dryden, across East Main to the DPW; the other from Ferguson Road, across 38 toward McClintock, Lake Street, and Livermore, and then back into East Main by the Town Hall and DPW, so basically an entire ring); The plan at the time of the outage was to complete this by the following Friday; Our team hurried up and made it happen within 2 days (a huge effort from HUNT, Syracuse Utilities, and Netegrity); This is how we brought service back around 5:00pm on Tuesday  Graham Dobson said “So it actually wasn’t a Windstream repair that fixed it, it was basically us connecting what we’ve always planned at the ring and our second provider”  Dave Makar said that as of right now, we do have two providers, one at each end of the Town (one on Pinckney Road on the west side, and one at Town Hall which is the Central Office)  All our customers are currently using the Windstream connection, and if Windstream ever has an outage going forward, we can now flip over and use our secondary provider to bring access (the downtime short, less than an hour, and Netegrity is working on that switch being instantaneous)  Tony Salerno stated, “That was a really long outage in my mind, and what has the customer response been?”  Dave Makar answered that the response has been very positive because we sent 5 or 6 emails during the outage (as soon as it happened Sunday afternoon we were aware of it); Some business customers switched over if they had a backup; Some residential customers told us they switched to their mobile hotspots temporarily, or they went to their office; Amanda Anderson has reviewed our entire SLA policy, and because we were over 1920 minutes of outage (the maximum), we provided a 50% credit on the months service; Amanda sends the emails out to customers regarding these credits  Graham Dobson said that Netegrity was also able to give him accurate feedback regarding the details of the outage when he called, and it gave him confidence as a customer  Tracy Monell added that the communication aspect of this entire program is unbelievable; He has been involved with this kind of stuff over the years and when you don’t communicate with your customers, there is nothing in the world that makes them more upset; People really appreciate the communication that Dave Makar has provided to the customers (makes them feel like they are cared about)  Mark Wilson added that it’s great to communicate details if they are relevant because it makes us seem trustworthy, which is something Spectrum would never do  Dave Makar stated that when this happened, it was not just impacting Dryden Fiber; Any ISP who was using this provider was impacted; However, because we are newer, and we only had a single source, it impacted us a lot more directly; We didn’t see a big outpouring of news on news websites, Twitter, or people complaining about it because other ISP’s had the secondary service set up in advance (and those ISP’s are much larger than ours and have been around a lot longer); Getting this redundant network has been a goal for us for a long time, and this outage accelerated that by about 2 weeks  Ryan Garrison added that this was a unique outage from Windstream’s perspective as well because they lost fiber that was on high-tension high-power lines up in the grounding space (this is the reason they were out for 3 days, and that’s a very uncommon thing for them to have happen as well)  Graham Dobson asked, “With our contract with Windstream, do we get some sort of compensation for that lack of service?”  Dave Makar answered “We are working through that right now and we should have a report by next meeting” • Dryden Fiber Map with 500 Foot Range Update – Dave Makar o Functions differently than the current map on drydenfiber.com and shows a lot more information o The green zone is our current green zone and has not changed o The darker green zone is 500 feet from the fiber line o Will work with HUNT to see how we can implement this map for the website o Going forward, we are aiming to have a quarterly update on the blue zones; Green zones are currently updated as soon as we have new areas that we can bring service o Starting July 1st and continuing quarterly, we will update the blue and yellow zones on the website o Graham Dobson and Tony Salerno like the new map and agree that it gives a clearer picture of the service and where you can get it • Reminders/Notes – Dave Makar o Next meeting is on June 21st – Report on construction, permitting, sales, installation requests, installations completed, customer service, marketing, finance, where we are with construction as it relates to the Village of Freeville and the Village of Dryden (currently in the yellow but very close to turning green) o Broadband Committee and Vender Communication: PublicBroadband@dryden.ny.us o Internal Operations Team Communication: operations@drydenfiber.com o Operations Team Meetings: Every other Wednesday from 10:00am-11:15am The meeting adjourned at 11:24am. Respectfully submitted, Cassie Byrnes Confidential Secretary to the Town Supervisor