HomeMy WebLinkAbout2012-04-12-CAC-minCommunications Advisory Committee
April 12, 2012 Meeting Minutes
Cary Hall, 1605 Mass Avenue, Legion Room
Chairman Jim Goell called the meeting to order at 6:30 PM.
Attendees
CAC members: Dave Becker, Frank Cai, Jim Goell, Dorinda Goodman,
Maria Kieslich, Ken Pogran, Smita Desai, Linda Roemer, Jim Goell and John Rudy
Comcast Representative: Jane Lyman
LexMedia Representatives: Florence DelSanto, David Ilsley
Selectmen's Liaison: George Burnell
1. Meeting Minutes The minutes of the March 15th, 2012 meeting were approved.
2. CAC - Selectman liaison report — George Burnell: Nothing to Report
3. Chairman's Report
a. Wireless renewal and upgrade approvals
Frank Cai and Jim Goell met with David George, the town Zoning Officer concerning
upgrade procedures, application process streamlining, carrier reporting and record
retention. Details are covered in a separate report. took it as an action item to follow up
the Town's lawyer on this report.
b. Decrease in CAC Charge total committee membership
The chair recommended to the CAC to reduce its membership quota from 13 to 10. This
would allow the CAC to have a lower quorum. The CAC currently only has 10 members.
Maria suggested that 11 would allow us to add a member and not increase the quorum
requirement. The CAC members agreed to the change. Jim Goell will follow up with the
Town.
4. Carrier reports. Comcast — Jane Lyman
Jane Lyman informed the CAC that Comcast is launching Xfinity Home. This service will
provide security services and remote monitoring to homes.
Form 500. The committee had some questions about this form. Jane informed the CAC that the
person who usually handles the form was out for the week. She does believe that the Halloween
storm customer service /complaints are captured in the report but will confirm this. Jane clarified
for the committee what constitutes a complaint. A call to Comcast to report an outage is not a
complaint. The call must be one where the main purpose is to express dissatisfaction with a
Comcast product or service to be logged as a complaint. Thus, people calling to see when their
cable would come back on and then mention that it is taking a long time, is not usually logged as
a complaint.
5. LexMedia — Florence DelSanto, David Ilsley
Channel Change. Jane Lyman explained the concept of Mandatory Coverage to the Committee.
A station in Norwell is invoking the "must" carry" rule where they can have a channel in new
town if they are able to adequately cover the geographic area with their signal. The implication
for Lexington is that channel 10 is that channel and that is being currently used by LexMedia.
Jane explained that Comcast really has no say in this and in fact, was approached years ago by
the Norwell station and had been trying to work it out with them to have no channel change.
Quite a few towns have been affected. An official letter of the change will likely come from
Comcast to the Town and LexMedia for June 1 This letter will also provide the date of the
change over. At that time, a notification will go out to subscribers given the information and date
of change. The notification must be at least a month in advance. Action Items: Jane Lyman will
provide the CAC and LexMedia with a list of all towns that will be affected. LexMedia will
work to inform its viewership. LexMedia will come to the CAC with a proposal for some
additional funds and assistance to facilitate the notification of channel change.
White Level Repair. LexMedia mentioned to Jane Lyman that one of the Comcast channels has
high white levels for about 6 months. Comcast has sent some repair people but it doesn't seem to
get fixed. Jane and LexMedia agreed to get together off line about getting quick and appropriate
repair service.
Results of Cary Hall audio upgrade. Florence DelSanto informed the CAC that this was
completed.
High school video hook -up update. LexMedia informed the CAC that the line had been moved
and that testing would be held the upcoming week.
LexMedia backup server location. Dorinda Goodman informed the CAC that a potential spot had
been found in Cary Hall in the projection booth. It already has a Verizon hookup. Dorinda will
be looking into remote testing and power issues of the location. In response to a question from a
CAC member about service for this server, the CAC was informed that LexMedia is responsible
for service and maintenance of the server. They have an engineer that they hire as needed.
LexMedia publicity update. LexMedia has worked with Town employees to make sure that
meetings that are covered by LexMedia are noted as such on the Town written and electronic
calendar. For the most part, the electronic calendar has been updated. Chairs of committees are
responsible for having it put on the written agendas and this has been spotty. LexMedia was
going to provide signage for individual meetings but this has been put on hold pending the
notification on channel change from Comcast.
G -15 Upgrade status. Dorinda Goodman has some quotes for equipment and installation and will
speak with Florence DelSanto to review them.
6. Storm outage refunds and expanded information on town website. John Rudy and Ken Pogran
will put out a small piece on this on the Town website shortly.
7. Comcast negotiations update. A meeting with Comcast will be taking place before the Summer.
Date and Time TBD.
8. Carrier revenue breakdown letter, revenue update and account review results. Dave Becker is
still working this report.
9. Wireless report. Covered earlier in the meeting.
10. Complaints. There were none. Maria Kieslich was asked to create a spreadsheet from the Google
Docs version and send it to the Committee.
11. New Business. RCN Contingency Plan. There is some concern that RCN may not be able to
fulfill its obligations to the Town if its business difficulties continue. The CAC will form a
subcommittee to review the situation and make recommendations for redundancies or other
plans. The Subcommittee members are Smita Desai, Ken Pogran and Dorinda Goodman.
Dorinda will be Chair of the subcommittee.
12. 8:00 p.m. Adjourn
Submitted by
Maria Kieslich