CONTACT

*** DRAFT ***

Date : October 7, 2003
Location: Leverett Town Hall
Time : 7 - 9pm

Attendees:

>From Shutesbury: Aron Goldman, Louise Dunphy, Michael DeChiara, Mark
Bucciarelli, Stephen Bannasch, Louise Herrmann

>From Leverett: Rob Brooks, Dan Mishkind, Fred Bashour, Bill Irvine, Glenn
Ayers, Allan Goodman

Agenda:

1. Introductions
2. Approve Minutes
3. Comcast Update
4. Meeting Reports
5. Fiber to the Home discussion

Action Items:

Due date for all items is our next meeting (November 4th)

MD Talk to Michael Vito re: Fiber on I-91 corridor. What does backbone
conect to? Who owns it?
MD Draft a letter to mail to political representatives
MB Call Hubbard introduce re: our efforts
AG Call Matt Crocker to see if Aron can go to RTC meeting
AG Call Don Powicki and invite to next meeting

MD = Michael DeChiara
MB = Mark Bucciarelli
AG = Aron Goldman

Approve Minutes:

Minutes were approved unanimously.

Comcast Update:

Aron reported on progress with Comcast. Based on our response rate of (only!)
50%, it does not look like Comcast is interested in investing in a network
build out.

Aaron will try to reschedule his meeting with Dan Glanville at Comcast.

Meeting Reports:

Linda Dunleavey and Jessica Atwood (Aron):
Linda and Jessica both work for the Franklin County Regional Council of
Government. The seem more interested in conventional cable and/or wireless
solutions. It's possible that we can share some of our knowledge of FTTH.
Stan Rosenberg (Michael):
Rosenberg's $10M proposal is in the Senate Ways and Means committee. It is
part of the supplemental budget, which may be out in a four to six weeks.
Stan suggested that the Mass Tech Collaborative might be a good organization
to administer the money.
Michael Vito (Mark, Louise, Michael):
Michael spoke highly of FRCOG. They did a lot of work getting major players
on the same page. We should contact Tom Hubbard of the MA Tech
Collaborative--a good guy, and knowledgeable. I-91 is getting a fiber
backbone that will run up to the VT border. We should contact David Tuddle
(sp?) re: RUS grants--he is the regional director, with an office in South
Amherst

Fiber To The Home:

We went over Tom Moylan's proposal to Stan Roseberg. He is looking for
feeback at this time, and there was no feedback from the group. We also
briefly looked at his letter to our group. His thinking and suggestions are
inline with our own.

Glen Ayers suggested it would be beneficial to have people that support our
efforts to write letters to politicians. Michael volunteered to draft a
sample letter.

Stephan Bannasch suggested we work on a value statement for our committee. We
did so, and generated 28 separate points.