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Home My WebLink AboutBbTF Minutes 05-05-2021 DRAFT AGENDA May 5, 2021 @ 5:30 PM DRAFT AGENDA 5:30 PM Welcomes and introductions - Greene/McKee 5:33 PM Discuss: The Orange County Board of Commissioners adopted a charge for the task force: 1. Discuss broadband solutions that will improve the quality of high speed internet services to Orange County residents 2. Recommend a plan to the Board of Orange County Commissioners that will expand reliable high-speed internet services to all County residents and businesses. The task force may consider other issues not related to items 1 or 2, at its discretion. 5:40 PM Open Broadband County and Statewide Update (What works? What doesn't? ) Alan Fitzpatrick 6:00 PM Discuss the"Proposal" RFP, RFQ or RFI. Northrup/Surat/Myren 6:25 PM Discuss meeting length -Co-chairs 6:28 PM Old Business/New Business/Housekeeping • Action Register Grants Update\ • Minutes/Notes approval 6:30 PM Adjourn Meeting Notes: Attendees: Commissioner Greene Commissioner McKee Charles Burnham Tony Blake Victoria Deaton Jeff Sural Travis Myren Patricia Hull Paul Cardillo Todd Broucksou Alan Fitzpatrick—Co-founder and CTO of Open Broadband (10 min presentation) Agenda: Discuss the charge—recommend a plan to BOCC;will be time for public input later;talk about BB solutions available to all OC residents—focus on 5000 households and target them first Action: - Alan Fitzpatrick: provide estimate of number of towers needed to service 5000 households - Jim: get RFI/RFQ and "county run fiber project" ready for BbTF to review Alan Fitzpatrick—presenting PowerPoint(attached) - Presentation - Q&A o Todd—what is cellular solution? AF: NetGear(?)Wave(cradlepoint)cellular router/plan— unlimited usage, no data caps,25-26 homes in service,only 3 that didn't work;fixed wireless are using CBRS 3.5Ghz spectrum to get through dense trees; had to go to 9 Mhz; using shared spectrum but managed by provider that manages bandwidth;every endpoint has to be programmed into spectrum sharing o Pat—of the residents who signed up to receive service what portion are you able to serve,AF: 10%; even some that sign up can't be served;TOH water tower is 102' but with rolling terrain 60- 80' height still challenges getting signal through o Earl—what tower height would OpenBB need should county build a tower;AF: 250-300' would be ideal;Q:what is limitation in height for county vertical assets;JN: no limit but higher the tower,the more the regulations to adhere to; Earl: limitation now is FAA regulations;SUT process gets you to 200'tower then FAA regs kick in. o Sally-how tall are Viper towers?;Todd:—80' monopole;Sally—if commission were to request a tower-if reason was to provide high-speed wireless internet service—hopes exception would be made;Alan—provide#of how many towers OpenBB would need to build to service 5000 households;AF:will review;considerations are terrain around tower, capacity of equipment— 500 users per tower; if perfectly placed, 10 towers;TB: 14-15 towers ideally; latticework towers (roan?)$20-25k/tower;guy wires would be required so need large tract of land for"fall zone", power is also a requirement;JN: ES tower was first tower and was used to successfully service trailer park o Earl—out of the total#of units in mobile home park how many signed up,AF: 65-70%,others didn't sign up because they wanted a bundled TV/internet solution, also part of it was lack of confidence—had a working solution so were reluctant to change to"unknown"; results on Phase 1 didn't live up to the promise o Earl—on Phase 1 outcome wasn't what was expected—what has acceptance rate been around towers? Need to understand what works for OpenBB as well as residents;AF:#1 reason don't have more is because coverage rate of existing equipment—35-50%"take rate"; regular LTE worked in Gaston Co and Wayne Co and getting 5 miles with 50 Mb; in OC towers not that tall and too much rolling terrain and density of trees. o Earl—what distance can expect from tall towers?AF: 2-2.5 miles;Sally-cost per household $1000; RDOF cost is$1700;GREAT grants average rate was$1100/household;Jeff Sural- $2900/household (includes all modes—fiber,fixed,etc);fixed wireless is$1500/household; drop to home cable company wants to charge$4k; PEMC quotes$5k/household for fiber to the home; Bertie County is$15k/household for fiber;grants are funding$1000/path; Earl—if OC was to move forward with towers(phase 1)is OpenBB ready to get service out to people it would be able to reach—manpower,equipment,etc.;AF:will need to evaluate equipment and manpower need to determine schedule; part of discussion would be that OpenBB could/would move forward quickly,without hesitation or exception;AF:extensive competition for talent and significant impact on manufacturers,chip shortages,cargo delays, etc—will be hard to hit high number given these constraints o Earl—how many installers now and how many would be required to do 1000 homes(19/day for a year to get 5000 household installs); 1000 would require 10 technicians so would need to staff up;JN: know fixed wireless won't be able to get to every one of 5000 houses;<ASK WHAT THE GOAL DATE WAS—2 years?????>(Call dropped during discussion); how to determine"take rate" to be able to get a more accurate estimate?; 5000 comes from "where Spectrum isn't"so only single landline provider(DSL—CenturyLink);JN: all calculations were pre-pandemic; o Paul:does the 5000 number account for hotspots?JN: no, don't have map data for hotspot coverage; data caps and throttling are concern;AF: did anything OpenBB presented surprise us? Sally—surprised by cost versus cost of other solutions; also by how much of own money invested Jim/Travis/Jeff—discuss RFQ/RFP; - working on last summer;something Finance/Legal/Construction team were working on; RFQ said have $30 million to spend, help us spend it;don't know what technology is required but know we want to partner with someone; not just handing over$30million and say"get'er done" - discussion around differences between RFP/RFQ/RFI - RFQ—request for qualifications,and a design/build construction project;AMS felt would be adequate for getting design services - Sally—we know generally what our problem is,and that one solution isn't going to solve it;want bidder to help clearly define the problem and propose a solution - Todd—what would like to see group do is empowering the County—take money coming from Feds, use it to put fiber on streets to 5000 homes then choose vendor that could take advantage of fiber to get internet to the home;one time in a generation to get money for this; Paul agrees—doesn't know how long schools will be able to afford hotspot costs of$40k/year;Terri agrees w/Todd as well; put out RFI to see which providers might be interested; lease fiber to vendor then use$$to cover cost of maintaining fiber - JN—CTC(vendor for Ting);did strategic plan and would be interested in doing plan for fiber, parts list and price it out from soup to nuts;then left with infrastructure that we'd be responsible for lighting up (one approach); plan/price for fiber network for County;design process would take 6-9 months - Todd—short term idea =>StarLink-county pays$500 then homeowner pays the monthly fees; use telephone poles for fiber-to-home so need to get friendly with PEMC;thinks could build infrastructure within 2 years; MCNC did 2400 miles in 2 years - Paul—fiber to the street—AT&T and Spectrum both have fiber past every house on 54;Spectrum charged $3000 to get it from street to house - Earl—money has to be spent by 2024 - Jeff Sural—RFP/RFI for County to install own fiber, need to have more discussion about legalities(see bill that Jeff Oust sent); bill has changed how state operates; next step is to finish RFP - Earl—proposes to discuss short term (fixed wireless)and fiber for long term;get more info;Sally—Jim to prepare RFP for group to review;Jim:can do RFP and get information about"county run fiber project" and bring it back to the group Defer approval of minutes(for last two meetings) until next meeting ACTION—Jim to bring RFP and "county run fiber project" Move to adjourn