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Princeton Broadband Committee
Meeting Minutes March 26, 2014 7:05pm - Town Hall Office, Princeton, MA
Committee Members Present:
Petr Spacek
Stan Moss
Ned Utzig
Dag Olsen
John Kowaleski
Two members of Millennium Design and two members of Wired West attended
Discussion
- Approve 3/19 Minutes – Unanimously Approved.
- Wired West Discussion – with members David Epstein and Jim Drawe.
- Co-op with 42 member towns, all became MLPs.
- Active involvement in lobbying for IT Bond Bill funds.
- Creating bond offering that municipalities can use for last-mile builds.
- Packaging bonds from multiple towns together into an aggregate bond.
- Estimate for entire Wired West project of 45 towns of $100M. Approximately $50M of which may come from IT bond bill
- Language of MBI rules may be changing to allow MBI to grant funds without requiring ownership in capital investments. Bill before Senate to modify their bylaws.
- Wired West is considering using a Chapter 44A 20-year bond.
- Model requires a 40% take rate in towns to back the bond.
- 28K houses in the 45-town group.
- Wired West co-op owns and operates the assets, contracts or creates the service provider for the network.
- Wired West believes IT bond bill will be issued on or prior to June 30.
- Forms/procedures for Wired West membership are on the wired west website.
- May/June EOI proposals with 60 day window.
- Update on Millennium / Negotiations. Ron Cassel, CEO of Millennium gave details on some of their recent builds:
- Valley net in Vermont - 23 towns, 1400 miles
- $36,000/mile
- 89% take rate
- Subscriber $103/month double-play includes service and depreciation
- Built three years ago
- Update from Stan on preliminary responses from town attorney regarding CATV licensing process and other matters:
- Validity of Matrix application – counsel opinion was it is not a valid CATV application.
- Whether IPTV service constitutes a CATV franchise - Counsel opinion is that IPTV is considered a CATV franchise, except possibly if there is no cable channel service.
- Can we negotiate procurement using GSA Schedule 70 - Counsel provided legal requirements, including putting out RFQ, notifying state authorities, etc. and also noted the use of the process is unprecedented in town.
- Broadband Committee voted to recommend to BOS not to extend the CATV process. Unanimously Approved.
- Chris Lynch suggested that IPTV portion of the Millennium proposal could be removed and the funding for it could be applied to make-ready work.
- Discussion on sharing legal costs of required paperwork with Wired West
- Planning for Demo – vote to table to next meeting. Unanimously Approved.
- Planning for Town Meeting – vote to table to next meeting. Unanimously Approved.
Action Items
- Stan working on finalizing the ISP contracts for CAIs
- Set up future meeting with MBI. (Steve)
Upcoming Agenda Items
- Discussion/Vote on Wired West membership
- Planning for Demo at Library
- Planning for Town Meeting
Meeting adjourned 9:36 PM
Respectfully submitted,
Ned Utzig
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