9/9/2003 CABLE AND ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE Minutes

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gave-a-brief report-on — dih the' 'o wn's network to change from Verizon to Comcast. To get started, up-front costs would be approximately $22,142 since COM a can't use what Verizon was using. With the switch, Steve indicated the monthly fee the town pays would go down to$1600 per month as opposed to Verizon's$2300 monthly fee. Steve said Verizon is old technology; Comcast has new infrastructure...better epee in troubleshooting. In addition to Comeas , another technical expertise is needed to support your infrastructure, thus the reason.for Brandywine Tech costs. Breakdown of funding request: $13,3450—one-time fees; 2 ---annual fees. $351)559—Total. Following are some of the issues that were discussed at length: Can the Town absorb costs if we don't do business in future with Comcast? Steve's personal viewpoint is this should be looked at as budget line item in the future. In future this could be by satellite-,therefore having -year finance plan is realistic. Caution: down the road Town to be prepared to tale over if we don't have funding. Action Items o MCAT needs to do -year,projection. * Fu1I detail proposal from truce Steno to be presented at next MCAT meeting. Meantime MCAT to plug in numbers submitted by Steve into spreadsheet for -year period. Bill Shea..*Bill addressed the topic of the Selectmen's request that Regulatory Committee meetings be videotaped. Bill asked for direction as to which committee meetings should be taped and played back at a latex date. Further, he said it will be a burden if 2 meetings are to be taped at one time. Bill explained problems encountered if more than one meeting taped. Definitely need a VCR for Meeting Room 2. A digital VCR would cast around'$2400 to give capability to playback 2 separate tapes. Highlights of the discussion and consensus reached include: • Keep digital tas for 30 days, except Selectmen's meetings. • Archive digital tapes to VHS tape. • ' Jim Marr will calculate projection for cost of ming I 1 meetings on a monthly basis, • Costs: Digital VCR=$2400; 3-month supply of digital tapes= 1 2oo...Total=$3600. Motion: Jim Chisholm motioned to allocate $2400 for a digital VCR and$1200 for digital tapes; Lolita McCray seconded this motion; and it was u.nmmously passed. Old Buslness...Arn Marr reported the Board of Selectmen approved the $18,12 7 School request and ,tiny informed Melissa. GIS steam G o *c 1nformation S stem Joyce mon introduced the topic by briefly explaining the background and need for updating the systern, which is done every 5 years. She introduced Eric Smith, who had prepared the proposal to MCAT for $83,,000. Eric, along with David Bailey, explained at length the history of GIS, including following comments: