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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBC 2024-11-01Town of Dryden Broadband Committee Meeting Friday, November 1, 2024 – Via Zoom Approved Minutes Attendees Graham Dobson – Broadband Committee Tony Salerno – Broadband Committee Mark Wilson – Broadband Committee Joel Cisne – Broadband Committee Arthur Sommer – Broadband Committee Jason Leifer – Town of Dryden Supervisor Dan Lamb – Town Board Mark Witmer – Town of Caroline Supervisor Tracy Monell – Gleamon Technology Ryan Garrison – HUNT EAS Kate Morseman – HUNT EAS Eric Beckhorn – Clarity Connect Dave Makar – Executive Director Amanda Anderson – Bookkeeper Cassie Byrnes – Confidential Secretary to the Town Supervisor Doug Schneider – Cortland Standard Rick Cicciarelli – Resident Dave Makar called the meeting to order at 10:32am. Introductions – Dave Makar J Cisne read the Dryden Fiber Mission Statement aloud: “Our mission is to provide reliable, affordable, high-speed, fiber-based internet access. We offer state-of-the-art technology and unmatched customer service.” Executive Summary – Dave Makar The Municipal Infrastructure Program (MIP) was awarded to 5 projects in the first phase, including the Dryden Fiber Project that serves the Town of Dryden and the Town of Caroline. • Dryden Fiber was the first of the 5 recipients to have live customers who are MIP funded customers, where MIP paid for the installations to the homes • 8 of our customers are MIP customers • We have received the Grant Disbursement Agreement (tells exactly how much we will spend and what we have to do for milestones, as well as outlines how we will talk about the project); We reviewed the agreement and sent back comments; This is the next step in the reimbursement of funds for the project; We are expecting to finish the first of 4 milestone groupings at the end of the year, and will be able to send in all reimbursable invoices; Because this is a reimbursable grant, the Town of Dryden and the Town of Caroline are fronting the money to pay our vendors, knowing that New York State will be paying us back; We are holding weekly status calls every Tuesday to discuss the details of the Grant Disbursement Agreement We are now able to serve 1,187 parcels (20% of the Town of Dryden) We are now able to serve 1,504 households (apartments, mobile homes) (25% of the Town of Dryden) We now have 165 paying customers (+40 in October) We had 75 in-bound requests in October (44 were in the green zone) We have 27 installations in the queue as of November 1st New Estimates as of November 1st: • 195+ customers by 12/1/24 • Close to 250 customers by 12/31/24 D Lamb asked “What do people think about strategies to get people to switch? We do a pretty good job of promoting, but we don’t really have messaging geared towards the switch.” • T Salerno answered, “I think we need some prepared answers to the common questions that people have, because there’s lots of different configurations that people have.” • D Makar will add “switching strategies” to the November agenda; Possibly reach out to existing customers to see how they switched Team Reports Customer Base – Amanda Anderson • 40 new customers installed • Decrease of 1 customer (took an introductory offer for 2 years from Spectrum) • Updated the names and speeds for the Business Tier • Town Hall and the Highway building were hooked up this morning, and will be part of the December report Construction Permitting Updates – Ryan Garrison • 20 Issued Permits • NYSDOT Permits – 1 permit under review awaiting approval • DRY001, DRY002, DRY003, and DRY004 – we are attached with the cable • DRY005 (Caswell Road) – we are attached but have a small section of underground that needs to be connected • DRY006 (Bone Plain Road) – electrical make-ready is in process (mid-November completion) • DRY007 (State Rt. 38 north / West Dryden Road) – electrical make-ready is in process (about 80% complete) • DRY008 (Peruville Road) – pending design approval • DRY009 (Fall Creek Road / Ed Hill Road) – electrical make-ready is in process (mid-November completion) • DRY010 (North Road / State Rt. 13 north) – Syracuse Utilities is placing cable and will be done by the end of next week • DRY011 (Gulf Hill Road / Sweetland Road / Bradshaw Road) – working through Verizon issues • DRY012 (State Rt. 366 / Dryden Road / Turkey Hill Road) – attached and cable complete D Makar added that on top of all these permits, the team at HUNT is also working on about 20 more permits for MIP; We can start to include the details of the MIP parts of the project in the December or January reports D Makar shared a color-coded map of all permits and R Garrison discussed the details of each permit, relating to specific roads and the progress being made in each area Address Availability Updates (As of November 1st) – Ryan Garrison • Added 248 parcels in October (205 households, not including trailer parks) • Total coverage: 1,187 parcels (1,351 households) • Coverage = About 20% of the Town (22% of households) • Added 10-10.5 miles of fiber this month • Underground fiber has been installed, and splicing will begin next week, on Highland Drive, Hilton Road, and Goodrich Way • Cable has been placed on 7 of 12 pole applications that will complete the north half of the town • Miscellaneous address activations in the Village of Dryden; Trying to get the Village completely green from border to border • Next Two Weeks: o Underground construction to continue on Lee Road, Scenic Way, Chelsey Circle, Bear Circle, and Hanford Drive o Splicing and testing of aerial work on Caswell Road, Route 13 north, North Road, and West Dryden Road Construction Updates & Multi-Dwelling Units and Mobile Home Parks – Ryan Garrison The Construction Updates slide is a detailed description of the construction; D Makar will send it to the Broadband Committee for review The MDU slide will be in the report and D Makar will send it to the Broadband Committee for review Installations – Tracy Monell Number of installations completed this month: 40 Number of installations pending (as of October 1st): 27 Installation blockers: 0 R Garrison sent out a new map yesterday with new addresses; T Monell has already reviewed it and there are another 12 residents signed up and ready to be scheduled Finance – Capital Project – Amanda Anderson There were not a lot of bills in October, but there will be a lot in November Will be adding another row to this chart – “Due From MIP” – because there’s a large amount that will be paid out in November (money we have spent but don’t have back yet) The bond update will happen in January Under “Project Budget Total”, the 44% represents what we have left in the original budget that was developed back in 2018 and 2019 • D Makar asked, “If we spent 44% of the current plan, and we’re only at 20%, is that because the ring backbone infrastructure was so much more costly that design work?” • A Anderson confirmed that the backbone is some of the bigger costs, and the installations are not as costly • R Garrison added that setting up the 4 PoPs was costly but it set us up to just build cable out from there Finance – Operations – Amanda Anderson Accounts receivable is $650; A Anderson and Allison Kjellander-Cantu, Deputy Town Clerk, will be reaching out to all customers that have not paid The email issue (customers receiving their billing emails in their spam folder) has been fixed thanks to Scott Brennan at Netegrity; Everybody is getting the emails now Accounts payable is usually around $15,000-$16,000 but it’s too early in the month to have bills yet Sales Operations – Tracy Monell Multi-Use Development – working on getting landlord agreements with mobile home parks throughout the town • Ithaca Estates – just about complete; HUNT has a couple things to do within the park, and then we can start getting those customers connected • 1062 Dryden Road – working with the owner and all vendors to get this property connected • Lower Creek Park and Wood Road Park – coordinating a time to meet with the owner to look over the property • Little Creek Manufactured Home Community – need to build within the park so service can be brought in • Mott Road – reached out to owner who wants his tenants to have the service • 12,14,16 Lake Street – working out a plan on how to get the service into the buildings • 8 Library Street – 4 people have signed up, but waiting on the Board of Directors to sign the landlord agreement Town Hall and DPW – both have been connected We currently have 19 landlord agreements signed and 4 more that have been approved (we are waiting for return) We have 42 new installations, 27 pending installations, and 24 potential installations that have signed up and contact has been made Working with Syracuse Utilities and Clarity Connect to keep track of our inventory Customer Service – Dave Makar • 185 total help desk calls • 55 unrelated calls (this number should drop when we get the new Dryden Fiber phone number) • 58 install orders for the month of October • Netegrity will be doing an upgrade to the Ciena hardware that’s in the PoPs, which should increase overall stability across the entire platform Marketing (as of November 1st) – Dave Makar • Under Contract = 165 (39 new) • Requests in October = 75 (45 in the green zone) • Serviceable Live = 68% of those who have requested service are now live • 20% of the miles that we have built became live in October • New signs posted (30+ new signs all over town) • Poster posted at Etna Post Office • New Dryden Fiber phone number will be (607) 844-7800 and will be live shortly • Social media posts • Business Tier Updates: o Updated letter sent to Business Tier customers o Postcard – just waiting on the new phone number to go live o Website Services Page – updated o Website Request Form – updated Approval of Monthly Minutes – Dave Makar The draft meeting minutes of July 12, 2024, July 26, 2024, August 9, 2024, and August 23, 2024, have been provided by C Byrnes, and she requested their approval. Motion: G Dobson made a motion to approve the meeting minutes of July 12, July 26, August 9, and August 23 Second: T Salerno All in Favor: Graham Dobson – Aye, Dan Lamb – Aye With no opposition, the meeting minutes of July 12, July 26, August 9, and August 23 were approved. Communications publicbroadband@dryden.ny.us – the committee, town staff, some vendor partners operations@drydenfiber.com – vendor partners and Executive Director support@drydenfiber.com – our 24/7/365 support team billing@drydenfiber.com – our finance team Next Meeting – November 15, 2024, at 10:30am The meeting adjourned at 11:48am. Respectfully submitted, Cassie Byrnes Confidential Secretary to the Town Supervisor