July 23^rd, 2001

City County Building
Indianapolis IN 46204

MEMBERS PRESENT:

Carlton Curry, Chairman
Stuart Rhodes, Member
Peter Blum, Member
Charlie Hiltunen, Member

MEMBERS ABSENT:

Daniel Lynch, Member

OTHERS PRESENT:

Summary of Discussion

Carlton Curry brought the meeting to order at 2:30 P.M.

 The first item on the agenda was the approval of minutes for the Cable Board’s July 23^rd, 2001. Motion was made by Hiltunen, seconded by Mr. Blum, to approve minutes. Motion carried unanimously.

The next item on the agenda was the ETC report. Ms. Tamika Williams stated IUPUI Community Learning Network courses would be returning to ETC 2 in August. They are college courses that IUPUI students take over television.

Next Month the ETC will be providing its ETC Annual Report, which will recap the last year of the Cooperative. Included will be information on new programming on the channels, accomplishment, and improvements made.

The connection from the new ETC playback site location on the Butler University campus to Time-Warner Cable has not yet been made. ETC is hoping to have this situation resolved soon so that programming can return to both channels.

The next item on the agenda was the Cable Agency Report. Mr. Maultra presented the Cable Agency Report, which highlighted the events that have taken place at the Cable Agency last month. Stating the Cable Agency and its counsel sent a letter to Digital Access to advice Digital Access, that in light of its recent correspondence to the City regarding the suspension of its business operations, the Cable Agency to consider their franchise agreement with the City, terminated.

The Cable Agency has spent a great deal of time over the past month in planning its 2002 budget and the Agency have met extensively with the Controller’s Office in finalizing it for today’s presentation by Chairman Curry and the subsequent presentation before the Finance & Administrative Committee of the City-County Council in August.

The institutional network (INET) the consultant approved by the Cable Board has begun work with regard to ascertaining the INET needs of the township fire departments. The Agency has been providing the consultant with additional documents as requested.

The Cable Agency has been in discussions with Time Warner and ETC (Educational Television Consortium) with regard to ETC’s request to have Time Warner connect ETC’s new headend location to the B cable. At issue is how Section 5.02 of Time Warner’s franchise agreement is interpreted. ETC was forced to move its headend when Butler University abandoned its old facilities at the Fairbanks Building and moved to a new location on the Butler Campus. ETC believes that Time Warner should connect them to the nearby B cable at no charge and Time Warner disagrees with that assessment. Mr. Maultra stated the City legal counsel is reviewing this matter and the Agency is hoping to engage in discussion with Time Warner to resolve outstanding issues. The Agency invited ETC’s Chief Engineer; Mark Wellington to be on hand today to speak to the situation as it currently stands.

The Cable Agency has been serving as a consumer advocate in mediating a number of cable television complaints received by its office.

The next item on the agenda was the Channel 16 Programming report presented by Mr. Montgomery. Mr. Montgomery highlighted some activities of Channel 16 for the Month of June. In June there were 40 hours 39 minutes of Live and Tape delayed meetings. Special Events productions totaled 16 hours 22 minutes. Series programming totaled 4 hours.

In the area of In-Kind Production, Channel 16 had 20 hours and 55 minutes. Total new production was 81 hours and 56 minutes.

The next item on the agenda was the Cable Operator’s Management Report. Mrs. Johnston addressed the ETC headend connection by Time Warner. Explaining the

Time Warner Institutional networks programming and solutions whereas Time Warner can work with ETC to get a connection in their Fairbanks building.

Motion was made by Mr. Hiltunen, seconded by Mr. Blum, to ask legal counsel to give an interpretation for the Board of the contractual responsibilities of Time Warner and ETC. Motion carried unanimously.

Motion was made by Mr. Hiltunen, seconded by Mr. Blum, to have Mr. Maultra to use his best efforts to resolve the ETC conflict ; in the event that Counsel finds the Board has standing. Motion carried unanimously.

 Shary Johnston stated Time Warner had a slight loss of customers in the month of June. Stating Time Warner completed100% of installation within 7 days. Incoming calls for the month was near 54,000 and Time Warner answered 90.20% within 30 seconds. Service calls: Time Warner received 4,153 calls; scheduled 2,497 and completed 2,289; 91% within 24 hours. Time Warner had 50 outages.

The Community Involvement report supports a list of different community events and programming (see report).

The next item on the agenda was the Comcast Management Report. Mr. Mark Apple stated that Comcast has a slight lost of customers in the month of June. Incoming calls for the month were 60,881 received and 54,925 handled. Comcast had 102 outages including 2 planned outages. Comcast received and scheduled 3,237 and completed 2,167; 99.7% within 36 hours or by customer request. Installations: Comcast scheduled 3,042 and completed 2,169; 100% within 7 days or less by customer request. See construction report.

Comcast also had 34 complaints for the month.

The next item on the agenda was the TOTALink presentation. Mr. Bill Roberts stated TOTALink continues to be in the pre-construction phase. No significant construction has commenced. Presently, TOTALink has strand mapped over 3,100 miles of Marion County. Over 25,600 IPL poles have been applied for attachment covering the entire proposed Phase 1 in area A as well as much of Phase 2 in Area A. Only a small percentage of these have been approved and processed for attachment. Approximately 1,600 miles of network within Marion County have been designed for installation. This represents potentially two years of network installation at the planned rate under TOTALink’s current build out plan. In addition, limited sections of support strand have been installed.

Stating at this point, TOTALink has determined to conserve capital by suspending the current engineering work underway. The company, in the past 10 days, has scaled back its engineering and construction staff in Indianapolis in consideration of the delays in construction and deterioration of the financial capital markets. Negotiations with pole owners and other pole attachers for acceptable make-ready costs and timely processing of make-ready costs and timely processing of make-ready requests are on-going.

TOTALink expects to provide the Cable Franchise Board, at its August meeting, with a more detailed report on its network construction progress and plans.

The next item on the agenda was the Cable Communications proposed 2002 budget. Mr. Curry explained the two elements of the Budget, which is the Cable Agency and Channel 16. Stating the budget will be presented to the Council as part of the City 2002 budget. Asking the Board for approval to present the budget to the Council. Mr. Curry explained different sub-objects and characters throughout the budget.

Motion was made by Mr. Curry, seconded by Mr. Hiltunen, to adopt the Cable Agency proposed 2002 budget and forward it to the City County Counsel. Motion carried unanimously.

The next item on the agenda was Old Business, Mr. Bob Borgmann addressed concerns by James Smashey. Stating Mr. Smashey had 3 primary concerns; stating (1) concern is cable stability stating FCC rules and regulations regarding customer service and rate changes customer would need 30 day notice to subscriber and the Board does not have authority over channel decisions. Also stating (2) that James Smashey complained over the frustration over lack of service offered at his apartment stating this is a private matter with the Cable Company and the owners of the apartment building. Lastly, (3) Mr. Smashey complained about the notice he received regarding his cable bill and rates.

Under Public comments, Mr. Smashey complained about the ETC movement. Mr. Smashey also gave personal suggestions on the Cable Agency and Channel 16 budget.

There were no further businesses to come before the Board: Mr. Curry adjourned the meeting at 4:05 p.m.