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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTelecommunications Board - Minutes - 03/06/2001TELECOMMUNICATIONS BOARD MEETING MINUTES ****March 6, 2001 **** *** 6:00 PM *** Council Liaison: Kurt Kastein Staff Liaison: Liz Stroh Chairperson: Greg Smith Phone: 686-4755 (W) Members Present: Larry Bontempo, Greg Smith, Curt Cramer, Braun Mincher, Tim Tillson, Bill Murray Members Absent: Tom Maher City Staff Present: Eric Dahlgren, Gary Gordier, Liz Stroh Guests: Margaret LeJuste, AT&T local government Mike Dahl, PRPA General Manager Chair Greg Smith called the meeting to order at 6:05 PM Approval of Minutes: Larry Bontempo made a motion to approve the minutes as submitted, Bill Murray seconded the motion, which passed unanimously. Mike Dahl from PRPA was present to give a brief overview of the PRPA fiber network and respond to any questions board members might have. Mike showed a map of the fiber system, both the larger loop connecting Loveland, Longmont and Fort Collins as well as a map of the Fort Collins plant. The arrangement between PRPA and the owner cities was to build the loop with the ownership of the fiber plant defaulting to the cities. Longmont took ownership of the fiber and the other cites asked PRPA to retain ownership of the fiber and lease it to interested telecommunications providers. Both Loveland and Fort Collins opted to keep ownership of some of the fiber for municipal 04/03/01 use. Dark fiber lease revenue would be remitted to the cities. Mike reported that PRPA had leased fiber for 3 years to ICG, a company providing phone service to certain areas, including Colorado State University. ICG recently filed for chapter 11 and have not yet paid annual lease, although that payment may be forthcoming soon. Yipes, another telecommunications company has also leased fiber from PRPA. Yipes has been working with Poudre School district to connect various schools and administrative buildings. Yipes is investigating the construction of an Ethernet system. Other existing or potential customers include Home State Bank in Loveland and Fort Collins, and TESS communications for the purpose of bringing phone service to select subdivisions. In Longmont, Adesta wants to overbuild and has signed a contract with Longmont to use all the fiber owned by the City of Longmont. Adesta has a contract with Longmont for use of fiber as well as a franchise to provide cable television. PRPA leased fiber between Loveland and Longmont from Qwest in order to provide some redundancy should there be problems of cable cuts or other disruption. PRPA has also leased bandwidth to Larimer County. The County wants to connect Blue Spruce offices with the Sheriffs Office and the Justice Center as well as offices in Loveland. Larry Bontempo asked about the amount of bandwidth being used. Currently the level is equivalent to 3 DS3 lines. Poudre Valley Hospital is another customer of PRPA, leasing 2 fiber strands to connect the new Harmony Campus with the main hospital on Lemay. In addition to the existing leases, others are also investigating possibilities. Poudre Fire Authority is investigating the potential for using the PRPA intra-city loop to facilitate training between Longmont and Fort Collins fire training facilities. Adesta has also inquired about the potential for leasing fiber in the Fort Collins area, and the First National bank would like to connect their 6 facilities in Loveland and Fort Collins. Braun asked about how connections to the loop were constructed for these companies. Mike explained that a company like Yipes could help with the construction. PRPA will help governmental entities to buy and install equipment, but they would have to own and operate after things are implemented. PPRPA rents space in building for patch panels and demarc points. Braun wondered about Qwest, and if they had expressed concern related to loss of business. Mike reported initially they had concerns, but nothing recently. Braun was interested about payments from ICG and what action might be taken if ICG does not meet obligation. Mike responded that if PRPA was under PUC, they would not be allowed to impact ICG's provision of phone service, and even though not regulated by PUC, PRPA will take that approach because of health and safety issues of ICG's customers. ICG has a new CEO who is focusing on their core business. Mike responded to Braun's question regarding cost of fiber install, explaining that the cost of the loop was about 7 million dollars, with a cost of $1M to add the surplus fibers. Braun asked about fiber install cost — 7 Million for fiber, connections at sub stations and other electronics and digital microwave system from rawhide and to Estes Park. Digital microwave is OC3 so should take care of needs. 04/03/01 0 Larry said he would not like to see PRPA get into the business of providing service, support and ongoing maintenance of leased fiber. Mike said to this point they are not trying to do anything in that area. SCADA system depends on this for monitoring alarms, opening and closing breakers, etc. Braun asked about ISP/ASP providers. Noll enough space to give room in building. Also concern about providing electric service to ISPs because they use a lot and are very mobile — could leave easily and leave a lot of infrastructure costs. Curt asked about cost and bandwidth. Mike explained that 2 systems were installed, one with OC48 and one with OC3. Currently half of the capacity is not being used. The City has 12 strands for its internal use. 96 fibers were installed between the cities, since it is less likely that there will be as many splices between cities as will happen within the cities. The Sonet architecture was chosen because it is most reliable. Since communication between sub -stations is the primary use, it is important for that reliability to be there. Curt asked what the City of Fort Collins planned to use. Gary responded that is currently under analysis. Mike mentioned that both Longmont and Fort Collins went together to purchase software and PRPA purchased hardware for a billing system, using the fiber to deliver data to the two customer centers. Bills for Fort Collins are also printed at PRPA as well. Internet use was purchased with Billing Application Software and that will be coming. AT&T update Margaret LeJuste, from AT&T Broadband reported back about call center and @home service. Talked to PJ Wayworth who had explained that there were some network problems. AT&T has put pressure on @Home to get the problems fixed and have a limit of 5 months to get it done. Some new technology is coming in 4-8 weeks to help. Network issues are critical factor. Margaret asked that if problems are happening, please e-mail her directly and she will get respond back as soon as possible. Tim Tillson explained frustration related to inability to get through the first level of support to the next tier. Marge will continue to work with @Home to find a solution. Tim suggested a ticket number for accounts, or some similar call tracking system. A DS3 line has been installed which will help with performance problems. Tim mentioned the business approach of laying copper between Longmont and Denver seems curious, given that there is currently fiber installed that could be taken advantage of. He also mentioned the initial marketing of @Home promised 1.5 Mb bandwidth capacity, and encouraged @Home to stay with that commitment. Tim asked about whether a person can get @Work at their home which would provide the ability to run a server. Margaret explained the plan is to split a node when the volume of customers impacts the performance. She will get a response related to @Work and bring that information back to the board at a later date. 3 04/03/01 • 0 Braun asked about whether any statistics are available related to "napster" type usage. Some companies are limiting the use of bandwidth to access those types of sites. Braun mentioned that "Starband" is available which will allow synchronization with dish networks. Braun commented that he believes the whole network needs to be faster because there are more and more demands. The lines between home and work is blurring because of people working at home, etc. Tim followed up with examples of routers that are available that are wireless that allows Internet access, so ever increasing growth and demands for access. Margaret mentioned a trial in Boulder that would allow other ISP's to use some of the unused AT&T bandwidth. Agreements are being negotiated with several different vendors to allow a test of the concept and to uncover any technical or operation issues that need to be resolved. Staff updates Liz reported that a meeting with the Council Liaison will be scheduled after the election, as board assignments might change. Gary explained that TESS Communications has asked to put franchise discussions on hold because of financial problems. Capital improvement process — Gary reported that the City management is various capital improvement needs and will be narrowing down projects that will be earmarked for funding over the next four years. The projects associated with Information Technology is to begin using the fiber in the PRPA loop allocated to the City of Fort Collins and to fund an expansion of the City's Cable control room and provide a permanent set to be used for video taping and cablecasting. Currently the only room available to the City is the CIC room and City Council Chambers, both of which are not the best backdrop for the various governmental programming that is in demand. Larry wondered about the need for this type of a studio facility. Gary explained that the City Council's policy agenda calls for improved communication with citizens, and in order to facilitate improved dialog between community and City Council, a plan is being developed to upgrade facilities and equipment. Tim asked about what would be put on the fiber network. Gary explained that both voice and data as well as some video use is anticipated. Will be using extra 12 MHz bandwidth on AT&T broadband system for data. Curt asked about timeline to light up fiber. Gary responded that the next budget cycle will or will not provide funding for that purpose and that decision will drive the timeline for getting things up and connected. In response to Greg's question, Gary indicated funding, if approved, would not be available until 2002. Braun made a motion to adjourn the meeting, seconded by Larry. The motion passed unanimously and meeting adjourned at 7:35 PM 4 04/03/01