Coordinator Report for meeting 6:00 p.m. Monday September 28, 2015 at Warwick Town Hall Rosa didn't get any comments on the minutes. I don't have any Chapter 268 Section 20D exemptions. We need to set a date for the tax classification hearing. Assessors suggest 26th of October. We will need to work around the MBI visit on that date which I recall is set for 6 pm. This is an annual exercise. Since we don't have any significant commercial class property it makes sense to me to once again vote to have the same tax rate on all classes of property. I am beginning to look at whether special assessment districts for betterments are possible. Ruth Miller who is the new Pioneer Superintendent will attend so she may introduce herself to the Selectboard. I scheduled her very early in the meeting. I request authorization from the Selectboard to apply for $5k in grant funding from MBI to support our LTE trial which will cost $14k. I am also seeking contracting authority to engage with Expeto in a trial of Long Term Evolution technology. There was anarticle in the Recorder on the subject today, Thursday. To clarify, the $100k cost estimate is my estimate to deploy this technology on both towers and with a total of three or four bases. That is what would be needed to meet all our current connections. However we'd want a lot more capacity pretty fast as this can be a mobility solution using low cost configured SIM cards in LTE phones and USB dongles in laptops, desktop computers, and tablets connecting directly to our towers so we'd be adding hundreds of devices. The trial will cost us $14k and we will end up with a single Lucent LTE Mimo 4 (multiple input / multiple output) base radio which is software defined so would work if we later identified and leased other available frequencies. We sell the test kit to another community our vendor is working with if we abandon the idea. In general an LTE sector costs about $15k to $25k for what is in front of the edge. The core switch to own costs $4 million. We would be subscribing to a virtualized solution (cloud) and pay Expeto monthly for this service much as we used to have our DHCP provisioned out of town by Access Plus before we began running our own routers. This test is priced far below cost. A single base radio can handle 40 Mbps x 60 simultaneous users. That is more than a Gig of Internet through one base radio on the tower. Expeto is urging us to serve adjacent communities to make the idea more attractive to Sprint. The reporter asked me how much is my cost estimate to deploy and that is $100k. This to put enough gear on our towers to serve everybody as we do now with fixed service to each premises and it is a guess. Since it will also be a mobile solution we will see a lot more connections; many now served by the customer's wireless Wi-Fi gateway / router will connect directly to our towers with a sim card in a phone or a cheap USP dongle in a tablet or laptop. If it tests we could spend several hundred thousand of MBI's money to deploy this solution and in the process abandon the fiber option and save the taxpayers the risk. Sprint is only involved in leasing the spectrum. The company, Expeto, is our agent for the core network switch, the network edge gear, the FCC license, and negotiations with spectrum leaseholders. Sprint will hardly know we exist. I didn't get anything in writing from the Broadband Committee but I expect we'll get a report on a survey they are developing and their work on WiredWest signups. Even though I have a lot of optimism about the LTE at this juncture we need to work parallel tracks and keep our options open. The meeting after this one will include a visit by MBI leadership to talk about grant funding and clarify the Town's options for broadband. Finally I am talking with Hill Town Networks about the opportunity of providing streaming local broadcast TV via Warwick Broadband. Chris is talking to an application service provider who takes care of the licensing and provides a hardware device that converts the broadcast TV signal to a IP stream in real time. Total cost to launch is about $20k which makes it a good thing to have a partner to cost share with. The margins are good with broadcast TV, less with typical cable offerings and quite low with premium cable channels. I only raise this to let you know that I am working on this possibility as it is desired by some. The MA DPU (Pubic Utilities) rendered a decision on Community Choice Aggregation (Hampshire Power) and it was adverse. They didn't approve making HPower the default energy provider. We should support the HPower effort and perhaps see if residential customers can begin to "elect" or choose this power provider. On the subject of KM / TGP Pipeline, both Planning Board Chair Cady and I on behalf of the Selectboard have indicated Warwick's interest in having the FRCOG develop publicly available data in response to the gas pipeline proposal. Green Communities Project Expeditor Contracts with Guardian Energy are ready for the board's signature. As procurement officer I recommend we use the utility approved vendor. This is because quality of workmanship is so important in air sealing and insulation. It would be foolish to choose a contractor on price. I have confirmation from DOER that this route is acceptable and it is governed under Chapter 25, energy service contracts. I have asked Larry as highway boss and Brian as tree warden to attend this meeting so we can review our understanding of hazard trees, the scenic road cutting policy, shade trees, and agree on a joint meeting time. Brian prefers Wednesday on site, the day after I had suggested.