Stowe Universal Broadband and Cell Access Committee Town of Stowe April 7, 2008 Minutes A regular meeting of the Stowe Universal Broadband and Cell Access Committee was held on Monday, April 7, 2008 in the Akeley Memorial Building Theater starting at 5:00p.m. Members Presents: Mort Butler, Bill Kempe, Chris North, Eric Phaneuf, KK Harvey, and Larry Lackey (for part of meeting). Staff Present: Richard Baker, Zoning Director Guest Present: Joe Allen, PowerShift Discussion With Joe Allen Joe Allen met with the committee to discuss the operations of PowerShift. He reported the following: § He expected FairPoint to announce the exchanges to be serviced 100% with DSL within a week. § An application for a Wi-Fi state grant has been submitted. If awarded, Wi-Fi would be available in the village area up Mountain Road to Baggy Knees and down Route 100 to the car wash. The proposed fees will be 30 minutes free/day, $9.95/week and $19.95/month. § DLS coverage is acceptable up to 18,000 feet from the DSL box although technically it can be used up to 30,000 feet § All existing cabinets probably can be fitted out with DLS capability even if they currently are not turned on § TI lines cost about $550/month § Fixed wireless is available in Stowe Hollow § Fixed wireless relies on line-of-sight § If FairPoint decides to cover 253 exchange, then no more fixed wireless will be installed § PowerShift is considering adding an antenna on the Stowe gondola house, but it has been difficult to get permission from SprucePeak. Approval of March 31, 2008 Minutes The minutes were approved with one minor correction. FairPoint DSL Coverage for 253 Exchange Mort reported that she talked to Beth Fatiggi about FairPoint's selection of exchanges for DSL. Beth said the decision was about six weeks away. Mort handed out a draft letter to FairPoint from the committee supporting selection of the 253 exchange for DSL. Mort asked for comments by April 8th. Select Board Progress Report Chris presented a draft Progress Report. Modifications included: § Adding a 3:1 ratio requirement for download to upload standard § Defining $40/month as an acceptable costs for broadband § That cellular coverage is required for both technologies used Eric volunteered to call Charlie Krammer about available mapping for cellular coverage Future Meeting Schedule The next meeting is April 21st. The next meeting will focus on the Progress Report and cellular coverage. The Select Board presentation will be April 28th. Thereafter, meetings will be held the first and third Monday. The meeting adjourned at approximately 6:30 p.m. Richard Baker, Zoning Director
Stowe Universal Broadband and Cell Access Committee Town of Stowe April 21, 2008 Minutes A regular meeting of the Stowe Universal Broadband and Cell Access Committee was held on Monday, April 21, 2008 in the Akeley Memorial Building Theater starting at 5:00p.m. Members Presents: Mort Butler, Chris North, KK Harvey, Nancy Stead, Larry Lackey Staff Present: None Guest Present: None Fairpoint Communications: Both Chris and Mort have recently spoken with Beth Fastigi from Fairpoint. Beth said that the exchanges that receive 100% coverage will have a combination of DSL and WiMax technologies deployed. WiMax is a fixed wireless, line of sight medium, employing towers and antennas. We do not have any details on the WiMax including its coverage, speeds and costs. Fairpoint is currently satisfying Verizon’s 75% commitment for 2008 and we believe they will wait until the last minute (Fall of 2008) to announce the 100% exchanges. Progress Report to the Selectboard Items 1 through 3 we have already worked on and we feel good about. 4 & 6 are similar and we will plan to develop surveys and/or refer to the Evslin’s information on those 7 would include the letter to Fairpoint and newspaper coverage. We spoke about printing some sort of article in the Stowe Reporter to tell of our progress. 8 we met with Powershift and Stowe Cable, and VTA visited us to show off the survey and the EVDO technology 9 we are not ready to make recommendations yet Chris is going to add some content to the report before he and Mort present it to the Selectboard next week. Verizon and newspaper article Nancy has enthusiastically agreed to write something for the paper regarding what high speed internet options are available. Mort is going to help her. They are also going to check Nancy’s neighborhood and some others for EVDO coverage. If it works, I believe Nancy will try it out at her house. Powershift Powershift did not receive a grant from the VTA for WiFi coverage of the village. They are apparently still interested in the project though. SAA, it was noted, offers free WiFi but apparently nobody knows about it. When they complete their renovations they will have space for people to sit down and surf. Cellular It appears that we need to do some driving around to see if the maps that are offered by the cellular companies are correct. Eric was going to get in touch with someone from the State to see if we could borrow their equipment at some point. This would include AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon. Parts of Unicel are going to AT&T and the other parts are going to Verizon. Coverage for Small Businesses It was brought up that in the future we may want to approach small and medium businesses in town and see how their internet needs are being met. Change of Venue for Meetings Meetings will be on the 1st and 3rd Mondays in the Town Manager’s office.
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