10-06 CFB Minutes

Jeff Simnick, Corporation Counsel	Buz Nesbit, Bright House Networks
Rick Maultra, Cable Communications	Al Aldridge, Bright House Networks
Cristy Tirotta, Cable Communications	Earl Harris, ETC
Ken Montgomery, Channel 16

Chairman Blum calls the October meeting of the Marion County Cable Franchise Board to order. He makes an administrative note that the Board still lacks a quorum so anything that requires a vote will need to be put off. He announces that the Mayor’s Office has appointed a new Board member and she will be attending the November meeting.

The first item on the agenda is the Approval of the August and September Minutes. Those will be set aside and the Cable Agency Report submitted by Mr. Rick Maultra, Director of the Cable Communications Agency will be next.

Mr. Maultra thanks the Board for the opportunity to highlight some of the things that the Cable Communications Agency has been involved with during the past month.

The Agency has been working on the fire department request for INET interconnection to the Washington Township locations and they are in discussions with Comcast and IFD with respect to it.

Bright House has been forwarded the executed notice of non-disclosure agreements that they required the City's agent, Scott Lewis to sign, before they would release the required financial data to him. This relates to the 2004 and 2005 franchise fee audits of Bright House Networks.

Bright House has submitted its filing to the City for it's calculations to its limited basic tier service offering and associated services in which to receive that offering. At such point that the Board has its first quorum, the Agency will ask the Board to consider Action Audits review the rate filing under New Business.

The Cable Communications Agency has been serving as a consumer advocate to Indianapolis and Marion County cable subscribers in assisting them in mediating cable complaints on their behalf.

For the month of September, the Agency received a total of 13 complaints for Bright House. For Comcast, the Agency received 73 complaints.

The majority being in that of billing, followed by telephone service, that being customer’s inability to get through to Comcast by telephone, and service interruptions.

That concludes Mr. Maultra’s Agency Report and remarks and he will answer any questions that the Board may have.

The next item on the agenda is the Government Access TV Programming Report with Ken Montgomery, Manager of Channel 16.

September was surprisingly a busy month, even though budget hearings were winding down and concluded in the middle of the month. Channel 16 still managed to cover 66 hours and 21 minutes of live and tape delayed meetings. Mr. Montgomery is pleased to report that included the Early Intervention Planning Council.

In addition, Channel 16 covered 29 hours and 6 minutes of specials and events production, which is above normal. There were 3 hours and 20 minutes of in-kind production for City-County/Government Agencies. That included the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns Awards Video, that Angela Gilmer did a nice job of putting that together.

The total for the month of September in all production categories was 100 hours and 17 minutes.

The total for In-Kind services if Channel 16 would have charged for it was $12,455. The lion share of that would have been for the Indiana Cities and Towns program.

The next item on the agenda is the Cable Operators Management Reports with Bright House Networks. Comcast will not be presenting their report.

Al Aldridge, Director of Public Affairs, along with Buz Nesbit, Division President for Bright House Networks will present their operator’s management report that was included in the Board Packet.

Bright House began the month with 59,793 customers and ended the month with 59,057, giving a system total of 736 customers loss for the month of September.

On the incoming call report, Bright House handled 60,884 calls out of 61,251 calls received. 55,247 calls were answered in 30 seconds or less, which gave a call answer rate of 90.7% and a busy rate of 0.002%, as represented by them.

100% of service interruption calls were addressed within 24 hours. There were no planned outages, but there were 27 unplanned outages that affected 5,273 customers. The system reliability for the month was 99.98%, as reported by Bright House.

100% of total service calls were addressed within the next business day, unless as otherwise directed by the customer.

There were no appointments kept outside of the 4-hour service window during normal business hours, unless requested by customer.

100% of standard installations were performed within seven business days after the order was placed.

The Division was the Presenting Sponsor for $100,000 worth of toys that will be given as part of the Kids Wish Network's "Holiday of Hope Gift Bank" at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis . The local gift program began at the start of September and will continue until all toys get to Riley Hospital for children patients. This is the first time that Bright House Networks has underwritten this program.

BHN is the Presenting Sponsor of the Circle City Classic Volunteer Brunch. This brunch salutes the several hundred volunteers that help to make the Circle City Classic Annual Scholarship Fundraiser such a strong community event. Over 1,000 volunteers attended this year's brunch.

Members of the Division continue to volunteer with the Indianapolis Public Schools Education Foundation, ICTA, the YMCA, the Walker Center , the 100 Black Men Indianapolis Chapter, and the Indiana Hemophilia Foundation.

Bright House Networks was a sponsor of the 2006 Hob Nob in September. The Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce presents the Hob Nob as an annual event that lets all of the candidates running for political office within the county present their platforms. The event is well attended and also allows members of the Division to network with City and County politicians and community VIPs.

The continued partnership with WDNI provided the required hours of local programming as mandated by the City's franchise agreement.

The next item on the agenda is the ETC Monthly Report presented by Mr. Earl Harris.

The Indianapolis Public Schools has produced the “IPS Hall of Fame.” This is the first of an annual event that will honor past IPS graduates and their accomplishments. The first class of twelve inductees includes, Senator Richard Lugar, who also served as the Keynote Speaker, Congresswoman Julia Carson, Vivica A. Fox, and David Letterman amongst others. Mayor Bart Peterson, IPS Board President Clarke Campbell, and IPS Superintendent Dr. Eugene White also spoke at the event. IPS students also played as important role as speakers and performers. The show can be seen starting this month on ETC 1.

IPS students in the Telecommunication program have begun the production of two programs. “Youth Inspirations” will include in-studio interviews with different guests from different fields. The production will inform viewers of their areas of expertise and how education played a role in their success. The first show includes a business owner, community center operator, and a teaching artist. The second production, “IPS Profiles”, will profile different departments in the school district. The production will include interviews with IPS staff and footage of facilities. Both shows will be seen on ETC 1 starting in November.

The Franciscan Center for Global Studies will produce three part series called “Global Speaker Series.” The program will feature speakers that come to Indianapolis to speak about their experiences on global issues. The program will be seen on ETC 2 starting in November.

Chairman Blum announces the next Board meeting on Monday, November 20^th, 2006 at 2:30 PM in room 260 and adjourns this meeting.

October 16, 2006

MEMBERS PRESENT

OTHERS PRESENT


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