BbTF Minutes 04-21-2021 - Laserfiche WebLink

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This video is more detail on Person County. Person County leveraged the MCNC network running through the county and were able to get two EMS towers through the VIPER program,and that serves double duty for wireless Internet: https://vimeo.com/527982590 Meeting Notes: Action Items: - Discuss short/long term solutions+RFP at next meeting(All) - Provide Task Force Charter to RiverStreet - Viper expansion research (Travis) - Determine what"next steps"should be before next meeting(Travis/Jim/Earl) - Approve minutes from last meeting(4/21)at next meeting(All) Discussion: Catharine Rice—BACKGROUND(pulled info below from ncheartsgigabit.org because I couldn't hear well): For more than a decade Catharine has been a broadband consultant serving North Carolina communities in planning and deploying local broadband systems and closing the digital divide,focusing particularly on those communities in the Research Triangle area and surrounding rural counties. Highlights of Catharine's work include assisting Pinetops, N.C. in its 2017 legislative effort to keep gigabit service(NC House Bill 396);contributing to the development, implementation and promotion of North Carolina's first community-owned,fiber-to-the-home gigabit network in Wilson, N.C.;working with the Town of Chapel Hill on piloting a free Wifi network to serve underprivileged public housing students with no internet access at home, assisting Carrboro N.C. in its role as a participant in the Triangle's NCNGN project and assisting in various broadband feasibility studies. Catharine is known for organizing the NC fiber lunches,and co-founding NC Hearts Gigabits(previously named CLIC-NC).She spearheaded a North Carolina grassroots effort that lobbied against NC House Bill 129 to defend local community authority to offer broadband services between 2007 and 2011.She is currently the project director for the Coalition for Local Internet Choice(CLIC), president of the Virginia Chapter of NATOA and at-large member and chair of the City of Alexandria,Virginia's IT Commission. Catharine holds a master's degree from the Annenberg School of Communications and a B.A.from the University of Michigan. - Questions/comments: o Commissioner McKee—how to proceed?; Catharine-Wireless is interim technology;fiber is ultimate goal o Terri—what are other counties doing about acquiring vertical assets; Catharine-using anything they can get their hands on; Person Co is using ES towers;viper built 2 of 4 public safety towers; took fiber to towers as well for backhaul;grain silos,any kind of towers OpenBB-only able to serve 225;switched to CBRS which will be faster and penetrate trees 100mb down/20mb up. On 2 county towers,and crown castle,want to get on ToH water tower,funding expansion on their own now; OC situation is a lot like Person Co in that so much rural PEMC: Susan/Larry—Background: - in 2014 PEMC started looking at fiber so could connect their business/offices and substations;2016 or so started putting in 144 fiber between facilities that went from H'boro to Roxboro and many substation in between; 2017-2018 extended up through Person Co and into Granville Co;sub-leased fiber from MCNC; phase 3 started in 2019 and finished in 2020 that formed big/couple of loops for PEMC for connectivity and failover - started looking at what could do to help membership; how to leverage all the bandwidth they have in the air;Susan—160 miles of fiber(nearly all aerial but some underground—costs 2-2.5x to go underground); 30 miles is leased; put in 144 strand; all about doing what can to help community/members