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HomeMy Public PortalAboutCable Television Advisory -- 2009-04-07 MinutesMinutes of the meeting of the Brewster Cable TV Advisory Committee scheduled for 7:00 pm on Tuesday 7 Apri12009. The meeting is called to order at 7:02 pm on Tuesday 7 April 2009 by Larry Greeley. The meeting is taking place in meeting room A in the basement of Brewster Town Offices building. Members present at this time are: Larry Greeley Norman Adams Larry Bugden Janet Husband Walter Powers Kathy Lambert, who is the information technology person for the town of Brewster, is present in the audience area. Norman Adams distributes copies of the draft minutes of the meeting of Tuesday 3 March 2009, as well as copies of the approved and subsequently filed minutes of the meeting of Tuesday 17 February 2009. A motion is made by Walter Powers and seconded by Janet Husband to approve the minutes of the meeting of Tuesday 3 March 2009 as presented. The vote to accept is unanimous. Larry Greeley mentions the Cape Cod Selectmen & Councilors' Association breakfast meeting which is scheduled for 7:30 am on Friday 10 Apri12009 at the Orleans Inn. This meeting is expected to have a presentation from Open Cape and a presentation from Comcast and hence should cover some cable TV material of interest. Larry reports briefly on the status of the construction of the control room for the Brewster government channel. It is now complete. A technician from The Camera Company is to install robotic cameras in the meeting room used by the Board of Selectmen (meeting room A). Larry reports on the letter from from Comcast in response to the letter from the Board of Selectmen concerning maps of the Comcast cable network in Brewster. (The letter from the Board of Selectmen was based on the draft prepared by Larry Bugden which was forwarded to them from this committee.) The response seems to show the less than accommodating attitudes often evinced by Comcast. Larry reports that the Board of Selectmen did approve the requested joint support of the Wellfleet negotiations with Comcast. Larry mentions a recent article in the Cape Cod Times issue of Saturday April 4, 2009, which discussed "The New England Job Show" produced by Chelmsford community access TV programming. At about 7:20 pm Steve Lipman, a resident of Brewster and the president and CEO of Cape Cod E-Com, Inc enters the audience area. He is at this meeting by invitation of Larry Greeley because Steve's company provides services which the Town of Brewster might find useful. Larry asks Steve to describe to the committee his company and its services. His company is located at 923 Route 6A, Building 5, Unit AA in Yarmouthport. MA 02675 Steve's telephone number is: (508) 375-9327 extension 10. He also has a cell phone number: (508) 335-5214 and a fax number: (508) 375-0024. Steve has an email address: steve@capecodecom.com. There are also 3 web sites listed on Steve's business cazd: www.visitcapecod.com, www.capecodecom.com, and www.webcastsusa.com. What his company does that might be useful to the Town of Brewster is provide a worldwide content delivery network to assist in delivery of live streaming video (such as coverage of a current meeting of the Board of Selectmen) and in delivery of stored media content (such as coverage of a recorded previous meeting of the Boazd of Selectmen). To access his company's services the Brewster digital material would be transmitted via the existing town broadband telephone company link to the Internet, where it would be sent to servers located somewhere on the Internet (physical locations near Washington DC and in the southwest USA are mentioned). These servers would respond to requests from Internet users (such as Brewster residents -whether in Brewster or anywhere else) and would supply the requested material. These servers are not owned by Steve's company which in this activity is essentially the retailer of streaming capacity provided by servers owned by very large companies who are wholesalers. There are various levels of service available from Steve's company. Steve provides a demonstration of some of these services by projecting on the westerly wall of meeting room A an image of the screen of his laptop computer which is connected to the Internet via the town's connection. Kathy Lambert has been helpful in making sure that this Internet access has been possible in this location. A related service is storage of such digital material on servers located somewhere. These servers are not owned by Steve's company which in this activity is essentially the retailer of rented storage owned by very large companies who aze wholesalers. There is some discussion of how much digital storage of Brewster material might be done on a server in Brewster owned and operated by the Town of Brewster and whether any of such storage could or should be done elsewhere ("somewhere") in servers owned and operated by parties other than the Town of Brewster. There is a brief discussion of what specific kinds and levels of service might be appropriate for the Town of Brewster and Steve says that he will send a formal proposal. Steve Lipman leaves at 8:36 pm. In regard to the date of the next meeting, someone points out that the normal date would be Tuesday 5 May 2009 which is the day after the town meeting scheduled for Monday 4 May 2009, and that if the town meeting is adjourned to the next day (which does sometimes happen, although rarely) then the meeting of this committee would be forced to be cancelled. There is a general discussion of what date soon after Tuesday 5 May 2009 would be a suitable replacement for that date but all the possibilities mentioned have one or another shortcoming. By general agreement the next meeting will be on the regular schedule, to wit, on Tuesday 5 May 2009 at the usual time and place, and that if there is a forced cancellation, the meeting will be rescheduled as appropriate. The meeting seems to be out of other business to be taken up tonight. A motion to adjourn is made by Walter Powers and seconded by Larry Greeley. The motion is passed unanimously. The meeting is adjourned at 8:39 pm. C-z,-, ~~~~ S Submitted by Norman Adams, Clerk, Brewster CTVAC ,-. r r ~` I~~~ "~,