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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBC 2024-12-20Town of Dryden Broadband Committee Meeting Friday, December 20, 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 Kathleen Kelley-Mackenzie – Town of Caroline Councilmember Tracy Monell – Gleamon Technology Ryan Garrison – HUNT EAS Kate Morseman – HUNT EAS Casey Kurz – HUNT EAS Jeff Smith – Municipal Solutions Eric Beckhorn – Clarity Connect Dave Makar – Executive Director Amanda Anderson – Bookkeeper Cassie Byrnes – Confidential Secretary to the Town Supervisor Kimberly Griffiths - Resi dent Dave Makar called the meeting to order at 10:36am. Introductions – Dave Makar M Wilson 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.” Next Meeting – Dave Makar Our next meeting is on Friday, January 3, 2025, at 10:30am (reporting meeting); D Makar suggested either switching the January meetings so that the first meeting would be for discussion and the second meeting would be for reporting, or moving both meetings to January 17, 2025 • The Broadband Committee members discussed it, and it was decided to switch the January meetings; January 3 will be a discussion meeting and January 17 will be a reporting meeting Service Level Agreement Discussion – Dave Makar Our SLA is currently posted on our website for residential and business customers “Network Service Availability” Section: • Dryden Fiber is committed to providing 99.99% Service Availability • Service Non-Availability must be reported by the customer by opening a trouble ticket and the start of the Service Non-Availability starts when the trouble ticket is opened; Should Dryden Fiber not provide 99.99% Service Availability for a given month, the customer is entitled to a credit against monthly recurring charges (MRC) o Length of Service Non-Availability Credit (in minutes):  120 minutes to 240 minutes = 10% of MRC  240 minutes to 480 minutes = 20% of MRC  480 minutes to 960 minutes = 30% of MRC  960 minutes to 1,920 minutes = 40% of MRC  Over 1,960 minutes = 50% of MRC o Length of Service Non-Availability Credit (in hours):  0.1 hours to 2 hours = No Credit  2 hours to 4 hours = 10% of MRC  4 hours to 8 hours = 20% of MRC  8 hours to 16 hours = 30% of MRC  16 hours to 32 hours = 40% of MRC  32 hours to 744 hours (maximum outage at 31 days x 24 hours per day = 50% of MRC) • We have been providing credits to our customers from the time that we have a report that anything is offline; We identified which customers were offline through the help of Netegrity, and did not require each individual customer to report to us (this would require tracking what time each individual customer called in as a starting point, and then doing the math on number of hours and percentage of credits once each customer is back on) o G Dobson mentioned that this is how the committee decided they wanted to operate, as we want to do a better job than our competitors, we want to make it easy to manage from our side, and we want to make it feel good on the customer side; Feedback from customers has shown this to be a very positive experience, and it makes us different than all our competitors • G Dobson expressed concern with how we can meet our 2-hour outage time when we are dependent on hardware (UPS boxes) and not knowing how long those individual boxes should stay up for each of our 4 PoPs o D Makar answered that R Garrison is working on an operations and maintenance plan document that describes all the PoPs, how they are operated, and what kind of systems are in place for heating, cooling, and batteries o D Makar mentioned that since our last outage, the batteries have been tested and there are new UPS’s being brought in, and we can bring in generators o R Garrison added that we are getting extended battery packs that will give a longer run time for the UPS’s and we are evaluating where we can have onsite generators that will kick on; This way, if we ever have a generator failure, we have enough battery to sustain the Cabinet until we can deploy a temporary generator • T Salerno commented that he believes the credit curve is too steep, and it gets up too high too fast; 33 hours seems like a short time to get up to the maximum credit o D Makar tasked the Broadband Committee members to come back with recommendations for outages and credits after doing some research “Force Majeure” - We make no mention of Force Majeure, the unforeseeable circumstances that prevent someone from fulfilling a contract; We have weather and/or acts of God as potential causes for outages and the SLA does not account for this • D Makar posed the question: “We can’t control if a tornado comes through and knocks out 10 different places where the fiber crosses the road. Do we automatically start giving people credits back after 2 hours? It will take us a long time to repair. Do we want to have anything about unforeseeable circumstances that we can’t manage?” o G Dobson agrees that we should have something in place, but posed the question: “How do we measure that?” o T Salerno added that severe weather (like the ice storm that caused the previous outage) should be addressed o R Garrison added that other companies who are doing work on shared poles could also cause damage that is out of our control  D Makar commented that this was similar to the situation we were in when Windstream had their outage; A windstorm snapped the line, and the crew that would do the work had to be specialists (high tension power lines); When we went to Windstream to ask them for credits, we were denied because it was a windstorm and Windstream couldn’t control that o M Wilson commented that we need to communicate to our customers that we are going to take care of them, and provide some context and let them know what sort of events are beyond our control; But let them know that if their service is interrupted, that we are going to credit them; This is something that sets us apart from other providers o D Lamb added that people are pretty conditioned to Force Majeure clauses, and it would be irresponsible for us to not have a clause like that in our SLA • D Makar will bring our SLA to our broadband attorneys at Phillips Lytle and ask them to make an amendment that includes this • T Salerno will make recommendations on the length of Service Non-Availability credit Back Haul Provider: Cogent – Dave Makar Prior to the Windstream outage, we only had one provider that was connected to the network; Within 48 hours of the outage, we were able to connect to our second provider and bring everyone back online • Cogent offered to provide service at both ends of the network and give us an additional discount • Having 2 different providers makes the most sense • Financially, keeping Windstream at Pinckney and replacing FirstLight with Cogent at the CO makes sense • The total savings per month is about $2,400; Over the course of 3 years, the savings is about $90,000; They are also giving us 3 months for free • The Town Board approved this change at their Town Board meeting last night • Aiming to switch around May 1st to June 1st (120 days) MIP Update – Dave Makar IMA: Inter-Municipal Agreement between the Town of Dryden and the Town of Caroline • Discusses how we work together to manage and fulfill the obligations of the MIP grant (includes approvals for making purchases, receiving invoices, approving paid invoices, and making payments) • Hoping to have an IMA ready for review by the end of next week (January 3rd), and then move forward for Town Board approval in the first 2 weeks of January GDA: Grant Dispersal Agreement between the Town of Dryden and NYS • Once the IMA is approved, that will allow us to sign the GDA • Describes all the major milestones and the obligations that we have to fulfill to be reimbursed for the grant Overall Timing: We are ahead of schedule on the 29 permits that were submitted in July (about 2-4 months ahead of schedule) • Normal timeline is 8-10 months for permitting approval, then electrical make-ready construction, and then splicing; This would allow us to begin serving customers in Caroline next fall • R Garrison added that our next step will be to prepare for electrical make-ready issues by possibly getting more contractors involved • D Makar added that the biggest gap has been the timing and the management of the electrical make-ready from the contractors (we cannot control when they do the work); Having a second or even a third provider will have a big impact on getting to the deadline on time • As of today, we have just over 24 months left in the MIP project Business Tier Updates – Dave Makar NYS wants to approve our marketing materials (postcards) that are going out, so once that is done, we will start marketing the new Business Tier to the commercial accounts in the community Marketing – Dave Makar We have produced a letter that will go out to all taxpayers in January, which gives an update on Dryden Fiber and an invitation to check out Dryden Fiber; This was approved by the Town Board last week The Dryden Fiber phone number has been updated and pushed out to social media: (607) 844-7800 Installations / Customer Count Update – Dave Makar • As of 12/19/24 we have 231 paying customers (+66 since 11/1/24) • 24 more scheduled for December; 14 more scheduled for January; 21 unscheduled = 231+24+14+21 = 290 total customers likely to be live by the end of January • Monthly Run Rate for December 1st: $15,255 - $2,404 (switch to Cogent) = $12,851 divided by $51.21 average invoice = 251 customers is the breakeven; The remainder of funds each month can go to paying down construction debt Construction / Map Updates / drydenfiber.com – Ryan Garrison • Hunt is currently working on map updates and they will be released in the next couple of days • Lee Road / Livermore Road / Some of Route 13: Have been spliced in and are ready for service • We hung a lot of cable this month, DRY009 (Fall Creek Road) is ready to be spliced in • Syracuse Utilities will be running cable on Route 38 North and on West Dryden Road in January Q&A / Future Topics G Dobson asked if we are still on track with our ONU and Plume devices, and having enough in stock to continue installations • D Makar answered that we are still ok and are considering using a different piece of hardware; We are waiting on a quote from Calix (which could possibly replace Ciena) • T Monell said we have about 200 ONU’s still in stock; We are waiting to order more until we make a decision about possibly switching to Calix • T Monell said that drop cables could be an issue moving forward; They have been ordered but they have not been shipping from CommScope when they are supposed to • D Makar suggested a discussion in a future meeting, identifying the number of parcels as we look at what’s coming each month and each quarter, so we can try to predict what’s going to happen D Makar expressed the immense amount of work that has been done this year, and thanked the entire team involved in the building of Dryden Fiber; It has been a huge year of growth for Dryden Fiber, and all teams have been engaged and involved Next Meeting – Friday, January 3, 2025, at 10:30am The meeting adjourned at 11:52am. Respectfully submitted, Cassie Byrnes Confidential Secretary to the Town Supervisor