CALL TO ORDER

Chair Burtner called the meeting to order at 9:07 a.m.

ROLL CALL

Members Present

Tony Anderson

Mike Carter

Roger Burtner, Chair

Carl Samantello

Fred Canfield

Steve Giano arrived after roll call.

Members Absent

Helen Hall

Cameron McCune

Richard Hartman

Robert Port

Larry Iboshi

Paul Stover, Vice Chair

Gerald Lucas

Staff

Joe Felz, Assistant to the City Manager

Chair Burtner announced that TWG Member Scott Carroll had submitted his resignation due to a job transfer.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Chair Burtner asked if there were any corrections to the minutes of September 21.Tony Anderson questioned a statement attributed to Dr. McCune on page 3 of the minutes regarding whether any of the $50 million in bond money received by the school district had been designated for technology or telecommunications improvements.Dr. McCune had indicated that none of the bond money had been so designated.Tony Anderson suggested that the statement was incorrect and perhaps taken out of context, and that the correct statement would be that there were no funds remaining of the $50 million bond money to be used for technology or telecommunications improvements.

Dr. Burtner asked for a motion to approve the minutes with the requested correction.Mr. Samantello so moved.Mr. Anderson seconded, and the motion was carried unanimously.

Dr. Burtner asked if there were any corrections to the minutes of November 2.With no response, he asked for a motion to approve.Mr. Canfield moved to approve the minutes.Mr. Carter seconded, and the motion was carried unanimously.

DISCUSSION ITEMS

Item 1.Creation of an educational/municipal (institutional) fiber/wireless network, FullertonNet

The case for creating an I-Net (cost estimate, school justifications, etc.)

Carl Samantello suggested that the I-Net plan be designed in modules or phases so that any vendor who would bid on the project would know that some portions of the project may be removed or set aside.Knowing in advance that all of the phases may not be completed might affect a vendor's bid.For example, if a vendor bid on a shared run, and one of the sites was eliminated, the vendor's bid might be different.Chair Burtner stated that the preliminary cost estimates were already basically modular, but that he would check with Corning regarding costs for shared runs.

Dr. Burtner reminded everyone that the preliminary cost estimates are conservative in that there may be funds from other sources, such as redevelopment or Time-Warner, that may reduce costs.In addition, if the City became a telecommunications provider, E-rate funds could be captured to pay a portion of the cost.

It was noted that confusion still exists on exactly how one obtains a SPIN to become a telecommunications provider.Chair Burtner asked Mr. Anderson to check into the qualifying process and report back to the committee.

Dr. Burtner reported that he spoke with Greg Whiteman, IT manager of the Tacoma School District, about its Gigabit Ethernet fiber network which was built several years ago.Several years ago the City of Tamcoma’s electric utility was wiring the whole city with fiber and included the school sites.The school district used E-rate funds to do internal wiring and to purchase equipment to connect its facilities to the Tacoma network.Mr. Whitehead is very pleased with the Gigabit Ethernet service that the district is receiving.

Tony Anderson pointed out that E-rate funds to pay for equipment costs are only available to the schools in greatest need (based on the school's discount rate, which is based on the free school lunch program).He also noted that only two or three schools in Fullerton would qualify at that level.

Corning cost estimates

Chair Burtner reported that he had not heard from Corning regarding refinement of the cost estimates, but he would follow up with them.

Showcase event at CSUF

Mr. Giano presented a recap of the subcommittee's objective of coordinating a roundtable discussion of the proposed I-Net, including visual demonstrations of high-end uses, with marketing focused on school districts and public safety.The purpose of the roundtable would be to garner support or create momentum for the I-Net.Once the proposed participants are interested in participating, the focus of discussion would turn to funding possibilities.The roundtable discussion is to be scheduled for sometime in February and will be held at Cal State Fullerton.Mr. Felz suggested including the City of Anaheim because they have Homeland Security funds and are the lead agency for Orange County.

Discussion with SCE and Time-Warner Telecom

Mr. Felz indicated he had been playing phone tag with the SCE rep, and was still working on setting up a meeting.In the meantime, his last update was that SCE is still not willing to come to the table to work on any kind of formula for providing power to a city-wide wireless mesh network, and they were taking an aggressive negative stance.Mr. Felz speculated that they are coming up with a business plan to get into this business – to create wireless networks for cities that own their streetlight poles.In cities where SCE owns both the streetlight poles and provides the power to them, it already has a monopoly position on creating citywide WiFi networks and may be developing a business plan to take advantage of it.

Mr. Felz asked Chair Burtner to adjourn the meeting before he briefed the TWG on negotiations with Time-Warner.

Item 2.Citywide wireless network

Mr. Felz suggested that the MetroFi proposal be scheduled for Council closed session in January, indicating that the timing was not right to get the item on the December 19 Council agenda.

ITEMS FOR NEXT MEETING

Further discussion on showcase event.

Update on I-Net developments.

PUBLIC COMMENTS

None

ANNOUNCEMENTS

None.

ADJOURNMENT

With no further business, Chair Burtner asked for a motion to adjourn.The motion to adjourn was made by Carl Samantello and seconded by Fred Canfield.The meeting was adjourned at 9:56 a.m. with unanimous approval.