The meeting started at 7:35 AM with Margaret Cooley introducing Larry Starr form Palo Alto Utilities. He introduced Mohammad Fattah and Tomm Marshall who are working with him on the FTTH trial, plus the UARFP (the WHO?!?), as well as other more usual tasks.
Larry Starr began by saying that they have a good idea of how the trial will work. He showed a slide of the equipment layout from the fiber ring to the home, where the fiber backbone is broken out and run into an areawide distribution cabinet, and then is run to each home with an external connector hopefully on the home wall. A hole is made through the home wall, and the fiber cable then is plugged into a very small converter box which is plugged into a wall outlet, and connected to the computer with a cat 5 cable running to the ethernet card in the computer. It may be possible to plug the fiber directly into a fiber ethernet card in the computer and avoid the internal converter and cat 5 wire, but that is more expensive. The installation can be customized as owners need, either a simple and cheap connection with the converter and ethernet card, but needing power in the house, or use a more expensive fiber connection computer card, but have no need for power or the converter outside the computer. The city will own everything up to the computer. If there are problems they expect to come out and service it up to the computer. There are no underground lines in the trial area. A map of the area was shown. It does not include most public facilities like schools and libraries in the area. The distribution switch is intended for use indoors, so they have to buy a 68inch high box with a heating and air conditioning system and power supply to protect the equipment and provide temperature control.
Costs for those taking the service were estimated at $500 for an advance engineering fee, $700 for start up for the 10 MBPS service, and $1900 for the 100 MBPS service. Since the Council requested a 5 year payback period the monthly fee will be $75 for 10 MBPS or $110 for 100 MBPS. They have formal cost estimates from 2 companies to provide ISP service. Rates range from A) $50/month with a daily allotment of 150 MB, plus $.10/day for each added MB or B) $24.95 for setup, $24.95/month, 1GB/month free, plus $20/month/GB additional per GB for the 10MBPS service. For 100 MBPS service the cost will be A) $100/month, with 200MB daily free, plus $0.10/MB/day, or B) $34.95 setup, $34.95/month, 1GB/month free, plus $.20/MB/day . The ISP for the trial will be competitively selected from bids.
Everyone in the service area will be asked if they are interested in FTTH, with the notices to go out to everyone in May. If anyone wants to be included in the trial there will be a $500 fee initially for the engineering, with the rest of the fee ($700 or $1900) collected when the service is turned on. Cost for service is based on the Council directive to recover expenses in 5 years.
Type of service usage by customers is important in selecting switches. Heavy users such as those transferring lots of data, or acting as a web site or server, require more expensive boxes.
Present schedule is to send out the survey in May, return to Council in late May with the survey results, complete the market assessment in June, prepare the staff report in July, present it to the UAC in Aug., send final recommendations to the Council in Sept., issue the bids for FTTH construction in Sept., award construction contracts in Dec., start actual construction in Jan 2000, operation of the trial starts in June 2000, and the evaluation will be done in Dec. 2000,. They will prepare the report on the results in Jan. 2001, and present it to the Council in Feb. 2001.
The City has had many calls from service providers interesting in selling them equipment. One man called from Minnesota referring to an article in a Toronto paper, and said he had the patent on FTTH. What he apparently meant was for equipment to provide cable service and data at the same time on fiber.
The sooner they get replies from the residents and a clear idea of interest levels, the sooner they can finalize the designs. If more than 70 people sign up the monthly rates can be lower. Tradeoffs between trying to get more users over a slightly wider area vs. added overall costs and complexity were discussed briefly. It was agreed to keep the area about the present size, but maybe add public facilities.
Barron Park also is interested in FTTH, so Larry Starr called Pacific Bell and asked if they wanted to do their own FTTH trial in Barron Park. They are a commercial organization that has said lots about their interest in data services, so this is an opportunity for them to do something, plus get a direct comparison with the City trial. So far there has been no reply from them.
Colin Mick has a neighbor in College Terrace who is very active in networking, and will help to hook up residents and businesses if they can get a FTTH trial approved. They would like to try to work something out in College Terrace, but crossing streets may be a problem and they may not be able to do it themselves. They would like to pursue a similar FTTH trial if at all possible.
Use of the fiber ring has been much lower than expected, mainly because of the high rental cost. They are taking a very hard look are lease rates and how the charges are structured. Some adjustments are very likely, in order to get more organizations using the fiber ring.
Bob Moss noted that the latest company to put in their own fiber did an awful job tearing up and patching the streets. The damage is significant, as is the inconvenience. This is a significant cost to the community also, and avoiding addition street damage and inconvenience should be factored into the total value of the fiber ring and the rates charged. It would be better to cut rental costs and make new installations more liable for all the true costs to the community, including street damages and traffic interruptions.
Larry explained the long timeline by noting that it takes lots of time to go out for bids, and award contracts, just because of the way the city operates. There has to be competitive bidding, and the Council has to approve any contract over $65,000, which FTTH certainly will be. They have to schedule to be on the UAC agenda, and then the Council agenda, and that can delay final contract approval actions by a month or more.
The group warmly thanked Larry and the other staff members for the presentation and for all their efforts and support.
Marvin Lee said other facilities such as schools, the Art Center, and libraries also should be tied into the trial, and it should be done at very low cost. There is a lot of benefit to be obtained, but it will add some engineering and fiber installation costs. The City should be willing to cover them as part of the trial, and because it will have major community benefits.
The agenda for May was discussed. It would be nice to follow up on FTTH and see what the status is, and how plans are working. A specific speaker and topic was not established, and will have to be done on-line.
At 7 PM on Thursday April 29 CCN will have a party in the Arts Center to celebrate sucess in obtaining the FTTH trial. The party is sponsored by Community Center Neighbors. Everyone is invited.
Meeting was adjourned at 8:30.
Respectfully submitted, Bob Moss
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