The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink AboutICTC Agenda and Packet 2017-03-27 AGENDA IOWA CITY TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION CITY CABLE TV OFFICE, 10 S. LINN ST., TOWER PLACE PARKING FACILITY, LEVEL 3A MARCH 27, 2017, 5:30PM 1. Call to order 2. Approval of January 23, 2017 meeting minutes 3. Announcements of Commissioners 4. Short public announcements 5. REPORTS Consumer Issues Mediacom Report Local Access Reports City Cable TV Office Report 6. Municipal broadband feasibility 7. Adjournment DRAFT MINUTES Iowa City Telecommunications Commission January 23, 2017 – 5:30 P.M. City of Iowa City Cable TV Office, 10 S. Linn St. - Tower Place, LEVEL 3A Call to Order:Meeting called to order at 5:30 P.M. Members Present:Nick Kilburg, Laura Bergus, Derek Johnk Members Absent:Paul Gowder Staff Present:Ty Coleman Others Present:Gerardo Sandoval Recommendations to Council : NONE Approval of Minutes: Bergus moved and Kilburg seconded a motion to approve the December 12, 2016 minutes as presented. The motion passed unanimously. Announcements of Commissioners: Bergus noted that she had recently posted information on Facebook about the Telecommunications Commission vacancy. Johnk said he had posted information about City board and commission vacancies in general, through his neighborhood association’s Facebook page, and noted that the post had received over a hundred views in a short time. Coleman said he had arranged with Communications staff to have a release created to promote the vacancy. Coleman said he was reminded that the vacancy was for a term ending in July of 2017 and that it could be a good opportunity for someone to try it out. Coleman also noted that he learned of a requirement for the Commission to be gender-balanced, meaning that the vacancy would need to be filled by a female. Short Public Announcements: None Consumer Issues: Coleman said the issue dealing with CenturyLink service noted in the Consumer Issues Report was still active, but that the customer said she had not yet called in a ticket to continue the resolution process. Coleman said the customer had called CenturyLink before and was told that she should be receiving service at speeds that differed from what she was experiencing during the call. Coleman said the customer seems to have taken the proper steps to rule out her own equipment. Johnk noted that some of the issues reported dealt with a fiber cut that had occurred in 1 DRAFT December. Coleman noted that one of the outages reported was due to extreme cold temperatures. Coleman said he was waiting to receive a report from Mediacom regarding outages that occurred in Iowa City in 2016. Mediacom Report: Coleman said he had included Mediacom’s letter regarding gigabit service in the meeting packet since he had inadvertently put a different letter from Mediacom in December’s packet. Johnk said he had noticed increased Internet speeds with his Mediacom service, stating that subscribers recently received a service tier upgrade at no additional charge. Coleman said Mediacom had recently revised its channel map in order to open up more bandwidth for Internet services. Coleman said the change didn’t impact subscribers greatly, noting that some Mediacom equipment simply needed to refresh the channel map. Those receiving cable directly from the wall to their TVs needed to rescan for channels, as many of the QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) channel assignments had changed. Coleman said it was reported that TiVo boxes may have taken a bit longer to update. Coleman said the change was announced in subscriber bills. Johnk said he noticed Mediacom had also pushed communications out through KCJJ radio. Coleman said that the City Channel 4 website’s listing of Iowa City channel positions had been updated to reflect any changes that occurred. Coleman said the channel locations of the local access stations had not changed, including the QAM channels associated with them. Local Access Reports: Sandoval reported that a group called the InterDance Collective had recently been producing programs for PATV. Sandoval said PATV is collaborating with the group for an Iowa dance week event in April. Johnk asked whether the organization had been in contact with the Senior Center. Sandoval said he would look into it. Sandoval said that PATV is encouraging the public to register through an online guidelines class in order to make it easier for people to become members. Sandoval noted that they have put guidelines information into a Prezi presentation, which includes audio for the visually-impaired, on their website. Those who watch or listen to the presentation can then go to PATV’s facility to take a test in order to continue the membership process and move on to classes for learning about cameras, studio use, and editing. Sandoval said he had recently visited other Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) stations in California, focusing mostly on public access. He said that many public access stations now have state-controlled contracts. Sandoval also noted that access representatives he met complimented PATV on its website. City Cable TV Office Report: Coleman referred to an upcoming event being held by ImOn in early February, saying he and two Commission members were planning to attend and would report about the event during the February 2017 Telecommunications Commission meeting. Coleman also said 2 DRAFT that the Cable TV Office would soon be starting another Multimedia Internship, which assists with the production of the City’s weekly, informational program. Adjournment: Johnk moved and Kilburg seconded a motion to adjourn. The motion passed unanimously. Adjournment was at 5:51 p.m. 3 March 22, 2017 To: Iowa City Telecommunications Commission From: Ty Coleman, Media Production Services Coordinator (MPSC) Re: Consumer Issues Report - February 2017 1.) Date: 02/01/17 Method of contact: Voicemail Complaint/Comment Summary: A small business owner on the southeast edge of Iowa City was told he could not receive service at his business location. Resolution Summary: MPSC inquired about the location with Mediacom’s Rick Karnes and Tim Eagen. Eagan identified the closest connection point and calculated the cost for extending service to the location. Karnes reported that Mediacom’s commercial sales team would contact the business owner to see what could be worked out. MPSC called the business owner and left a message to provide some insight into the situation, noting that in some cases, the potential subscriber may need to share some of the cost for getting cable to a location in a less-dense area. No further communication was received from the business owner. Date of Resolution: 02/06/17 February 23, 2017 To: Iowa City Telecommunications Commission From: Ty Coleman, Media Production Services Coordinator (MPSC) Re: Consumer Issues Report - January 2017 1.) Date: 01/03/17 Method of contact: Email Complaint/Comment Summary: Resident asked whether Mediacom still had a monopoly with the City and noted that she had been having TV signal issues over the past two months. Resolution Summary: MPSC provided the resident with information about the non-exclusive franchise agreement with Mediacom and explained the challenge of getting another provider to enter the Iowa City market due to the high up-front costs of building a complete cable system. MPSC also noted that there had been a few outages in December due to a fiber cut and extreme temperatures. MPSC also forwarded the technical issues to Mediacom’s Rick Karnes. Mediacom’s Betsy Hartman reported that she called the customer and her issues were resolved. Date of Resolution: 01/04/17 2.) Date: 01/17/17 Method of contact: Voicemail Issue/Comment Summary: Resident complained about Mediacom being the only cable provider and said her TV service had been out recently and that she was currently missing her upper channels. Resolution Summary: MPSC provided the resident with information about the current cable TV system, noting the challenge of getting a competitive provider to enter the Iowa City market. The missing upper channels were due to a recent change Mediacom’s channel mapping, which had relocated a number of the upper channels for those getting a signal directly from the wall to their TV. Date of Resolution: 01/18/17 3.) Date: 01/17/17 Method of contact: Online complaint form Issue/Comment Summary: Resident reported that he had been having difficulty with his cable over the past couple of weeks. Resolution Summary: MPSC contacted the resident to obtain a clearer description of the difficulties along with an address to submit to Mediacom staff. No further response was received from the resident. Date of Resolution: 01/18/17 4.) Date: 01/18/17 Method of contact: Complaint through ICgovXpress Issue/Comment Summary: Resident complained that Mediacom service was frequently down, stating that TV service had been off all day. Resolution Summary: MPSC informed the resident of Mediacom’s recent change in channel mapping and explained what to do depending on the setup of the resident’s TVs. MPSC told the resident that if the suggestions did not help to resolve the issue, he/she could provide an address to get Mediacom staff involved. No further response was received from the resident. Date of Resolution: 01/18/17 5.) Date: 01/19/17 Method of contact: Phone call Issue/Comment Summary: Resident reported that his cable TV service stopped working following work completed involving running a new cable to the resident’s apartment building. Resident complained that he was told the next available appointment was four days away. Resolution Summary: MPSC forwarded the issue to Rick Karnes, who later reported the issue had been resolved. Date of Resolution: 01/19/2017 6.) Date: 01/24/17 Method of contact: Email Issue/Comment Summary: Representative of a local property management company reported difficulty in getting CenturyLink to provide service to a new building on Shire Lane. A tenant was told by CenturyLink that her building was not in their system due to the City not having provided the legal description or E911 address for the property. Resolution Summary: MPSC contacted the City’s Engineering Division to investigate the issue and learned that an address had been assigned to the property and that the developer should be able to provide the legal description and set up the utility services. MPSC reported this information to the company’s representative said she would contact CenturyLink to verify that they had the needed information. No further communication was received from the representative. Date of Resolution: 01/25/17 7.) Date: 01/30/17 Method of contact: Twitter Issue/Comment Summary: During a service outage due to a fiber in Cedar Rapids that was cut overnight, a customer asked why Mediacom did not have a second line going from Cedar Rapids to Iowa City, noting that fiber cuts seemed to occur often. Resolution Summary: MPSC posed the customer’s question to Mediacom’s Lee Grassley. Grassley reported that running another line would be impractical and prohibitively expensive. However, Mediacom’s Internet service has built-in redundancy with lines between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids as well as the Quad Cities. Grassley stated that the system in Iowa City had only been down for a total of approximately 22 hours during 2016. The outage was resolved by the middle of the same day. Date of Resolution: 01/31/17 8.) Date: 01/30/17 Method of contact: Phone Issue/Comment Summary: Resident asked about the current outage and why Iowa City can’t do business with another cable company. Resolution Summary: MPSC informed the resident about the cause of the outage. MPSC informed the resident of the non-exclusive nature of the franchise agreement with Mediacom and provided information regarding the potential for another provider to enter the Iowa City market. Date of Resolution: 01/30/17 Ticket #Description Region Impacted Type Video Start Date End Date 1 INC000001938474 MX - CRQ000000064642 - iwcia004cm9, Field Repairing Fiber Capital Unscheduled Full 20 8/3/2016 9:30:00 AM 8/3/2016 10:31:00 AM 2 INC000001951095 MX - CRQ 65666 - CDRIA-TM3000-2 - Splicing in New Enclosure Capital Unscheduled Full 8,212 9/8/2016 6:00:00 AM 9/8/2016 8:43:18 AM 3 INC000001969402 CDRIA.VTN01 - Multiple Channel Outage Capital Unscheduled Full 8,212 11/1/2016 9:19:36 PM 11/1/2016 11:12:23 PM 4 INC000001987726 CDRIA.VTN01 - Multiple Channel Outage Capital Unscheduled Full 8,212 12/23/2016 3:44:38 PM 12/23/2016 4:19:10 PM 5 INC000001987751 CDRIA.VTN01 - Multiple Channel Outage Capital Unscheduled Full 8,212 12/23/2016 7:26:04 PM 12/25/2016 10:20:37 AM 2016 Mediacom Iowa City Outage Report Information regarding all items (1-5) continues on subsequent pages. Duration Cause Cause Vendor Resolution Resolution Vendor AOT # 1 1:00:59 Forced Relocate Swick Fiber restore Swick AOT000000048055 2 2:43:18 Maintenance-replace bad enclosure Swick Fiber splice in new enclosure Swick AOT000000049213 3 1:52:47 Video Services - SEM went bad Replaced with Apex Mediacom AOT000000051104 4 0:34:32 Video Services-local broadcaster Broadcaster corrected AOT000000052554 5 14:54:33 Video Services-local broadcaster KM Television of IowaBroadcaster corrected KM Television of Iowa AOT000000052556 Repair Description 1 CRQ000000064642 - iwcia004cm9 for forced fiber relocate had exceeded the maintenance window causing an HFC outage for Iowa City, IA. Field completed their maintenance restoring service. 2 CRQ 65666 - CDRIA-TM3000-2 Splicing in new enclosure exceeded the maintenance window causing a VIPE and Cellular Backhaul outage which impacted Cedar Rapids, IA fed markets. Field completed work and IP Operations undid channel bonding on Iowa City, IA CMTSs to restore service. 3 HFC NOC reported a multiple channel outage impacting Iowa City, IA markets. CVO and Field were engaged and determined this issue is caused by a failing SEM in Cedar Rapids, IA. Field replaced the SEM with an APEX to restore service. 4 Monitoring tools reported a multiple channel outage impacting the Iowa City, IA markets. The channels restored without known intervention before investigation could take place. No RFO was found. 5 Monitoring tools reported a multiple channel outage impacted the Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, and Iowa City, IA markets. Field reported a broadcaster issue. Service restored without known intervention. Broadcaster was unable to provide RFO. The Library Channel Report prepared for the Iowa City Telecommunications Commission monthly meeting by Beth Fisher, Program Librarian and Bond Drager, Equipment Specialist. March 2017 March 2017: We have had lots of children’s programming in March including a performance from UI’s touring dance company Dancers in Company, a special Iditarod storytime, a program on Iowa’s Birds of Prey from Raptology, a preview of the new show Wild Wild West from Ballet Quad Cities, and three other family storytime programs. For adults, March included the final Project GREEN Second Sunday Garden forum of the year with guest Juli Seydell-Johnson, the Director of Iowa City Parks and Recreation discussing the city’s parks and green spaces. Also this month will be a program on the Johnson County Historic Poor Farm cosponsored with the UI Obermann Center for Advanced Studies In March Library Channel staff produced a short program on the ICPL’s Special Access Browsing events for the American Library Association. The monthly Special Access Browsing Events are designed for individuals on the autism spectrum and their families to enjoy the Library in a calm and welcoming environment. Once a month the library opens one hour early using only natural lighting to accommodate those with sensory integration issues. The children's room has specially designed children’s events, often including therapy dogs, sensory toys and activities. The Teen Room and Adult areas of the library will also be open and staffed at that time. ICPL has received quite a bit of press in the library community about our program, and the American Library Association asked for a video they could share. Monthly Program Update: This month: March 2017 Next Month: April 2017 Live Children’s Programs • • Live Children’s Special Events • 6 • 5 Live Adult Programs • 2 • 7 Programs Cablecast • 675 • Programs videotaped by Govt. Channel/CTS • • PATV Report to Iowa City Telecommunications Commission March 2017 March is coming along just like our local weather. We have been celebrating Women’s History Month by interviewing our female producers as well as some local community members and featuring them on our channel and via social media. We are also collaborating with Iowa Dance Festival 2017 for a fundraiser at Beadology on March 25th. PATV Board Meetings PATV Board of Directors next meeting April 20th, at 6 pm. Intro Workshop Guidelines orientation is the ﬁrst Thursday of every month, 6 pm at PATV. Next Guidelines is Thursday, April. 6th at 6 PM. Video Workshops Schedule Studio Training – The second Tuesday of the month from 5 – 7 pm. HD Camera – The third Thursday of the month from 6 –8 pm. Digital Editing – The fourth Thursday of the month from 6 - 8 pm. Current and upcoming staff supported productions Little Lady President Time for Soup Nora’s House of Dance Education Exchange The Joseph Dobrian Show Hello it’s us GreenFire The LyleStyle Show PATV Presents: Thursday Night Live at Uptown Bills Tom’s Guitar Show Time for truth Submitted by Gerardo Sandoval 3/15/17 206 Lafayette St. • Iowa City, Iowa 52240 • Phone 338-7035 Fax 338-8456 • contact@patv.tv • http://www.patv.tv Date: March 22, 2017 To: The Iowa City Telecommunications Commission From: Ty Coleman, Media Production Services Coordinator, City of Iowa City Cable TV Office Re: City of Iowa City Cable TV Office report for the March 2017 meeting Media Production Services Provided by Joel Bouwers, Media Production Asst. and Jack Brooks, Special Projects Asst. Recent production activities: ●Covered 3 lectures by the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council, including topics such as the 2016 election and Bushido in modern Japanese culture. ●Covered the kickoff luncheon for the NAMIWalks event which will take place on May 6. ●Recorded an event held by the Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce to discuss current events in the Iowa City Community School District. ●Covered an event held by the Human Rights Commission discussing spousal and partner abuse laws and resources. ●Shot and produced four episodes of Iowa City Update. Topics included the Mission Creek Festival, spring street sweeping, curbside compost program and severe weather awareness week. ●Created a March edition of Iowa City In Focus that featured an in-depth interview with new Police Chief Jody Matherly. Other topics included a look at the City’s water purification process, a traffic study and a new food truck pilot program. ●Completed a five-part series called Composting 101 to educate residents on the process of the new curbside compost program. ●Produced a PSA on the Iowa City/Johnson County weather alert system to educate the public about the different weather events that cause the sirens to sound. Upcoming productions: ●Cover several lectures for the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council including topics such as the refugee crisis confronting Jordan. ●Record and cablecast live the work sessions and formal meetings of the Iowa City City Council on April 4 and 18. ●Continue weekly episodes of Iowa City Update. Upcoming topics include how to report a pothole, food truck pilot program and national bookmobile day. ●An Iowa City In Focus for April that will include the following topics: Riverfront Crossings growth, new curbside composting option, PD donating bikes to youth and beet juice being used in the City’s salt supply. ●Upcoming Community Highlight videos will include the Polar Plunge, Spring Art Expose, and Craft Fair. Programming and Interactive Services Provided by Kevin Crawley, Communications Technician Recent and upcoming projects: We have a great new idea for our InfoVision interactive system: With our new Google Voice interface, we realized that we can not only take requests by phone, but also by text and email. With that idea in mind, we'll be working first on a new button for our online video database that will allow users to pull up the requested video on channel 5, as well as on EarthChannel and YouTube. I've also been experimenting with a new framework for the next iteration of the citychannel4.com website, and hope to roll out some new pages in that framework soon. Website: In February, we had 2,564 users access 4,831 pages in 2,564 sessions. Our most popular pages were Mediacom's channel lineup, our homepage, our video page, Mediacom's cable rates, the Brown Bag Lunch History Talk video, our program schedule, and the series page for City Council Videos. Our streaming media provider reports 8,269 total hits, which includes 4,001 Events (player window was loaded), 387 Sessions (media was played), and 2,496 OnDemand Hits (media was scrubbed or index point was clicked). 1,185 podcasts were downloaded, and our HQ media was accessed 1999 times. Our live stream was accessed 375 times. Meanwhile on our YouTube page, we had 2,326 views for 10,556 minutes (a little over 176 hours) of watch time. Programming: We cablecast 134 programs produced in-house 874 times for 517 hours of programming, 35 locally-produced (DITV, Senior Center, Hoover Library, JC Board of Supervisors, Coralville, North Liberty and University Heights) programs 97 times for 96 hours of programming, and 19 imported programs 63 times for 26 hours of programming. We also showed 97 PSAs 1053 times for 24 hours of programming. Programs Completed by the Cable TV Office in February 2017 ●Making History: 160 Years at the State Historical Society of Iowa ○Benjamin F. Shambaugh ○The History of Iowa Labor ●League of Women Voters Legislative Forum ●Brown Bag Lunch History Talk: Unraveling the Mysteries of the IXL Block, One Bead at a Time ●Iowa City Foreign Relations Council ○The Global Impact of Drugs ○Gaza - To Exist is to Resist ○Indian Cinema in America ○From Svalbard to Standing Rock: The Idea of the Sublime in a Time of Climate Change ●Sierra Club - Clean Water in Iowa ●2017 Preucil School of Music Annual String Concert ●The Sound of Friendship 2017 - A Concert to Benefit the Compeer Program ●Chamber of Commerce 2017 Annual Banquet ●Iowa City City Council Work Sessions ○January 31, 2017 ○February 7, 2017 ○February 21, 2017 ●Iowa City City Council Meetings ○February 7, 2017 ○February 21, 2017 ●Northside Neighborhood Visioning Workshop Presentation ●South District Visioning Workshop Presentation ●Iowa City In Focus for February 2017 ○Stories included: ■an in-depth look into the City’s budget process ■Shelter House ■a feature on ice fishing ■the One Book Two Book children’s literature festival ●Iowa City Update ○Black History Month ○Visioning Workshops (Northside Neighborhood and South District) ○Water Purification Process ○Mission Creek Festival ●Community Highlights ○Freeze Fest ○Top Chef Downtown