Experiences on Cable Advisory Commissions

["Howard C. Berkowitz" <sy () netcases net>]

I've designed services for cable and other residential broadband, and 
evaluated vendor proposals for WAN services. Now, though, I have a new 
responsibility: being on the Cable Advisory Committee for my small Cape 
Cod town od Chatham, MA. We're the easternmost point on the continental 
US, have been around for 300 years, and even was the original Marconi 
transmitter site and a WWII SIGINT intercept base. We have, however, 
more Great White Sharks than technologists. The town has a blue-collar 
fishing population that is dwarfed by summer vacationers/summer home 
residents.

Has anyone else been in such a civic role? Can we share experience?

Its first role is evaluating performance of Comcast, the incumbent, and 
deciding whether to recommend renewal or make a preliminary denial. This 
gets into an overall "ascertainment of needs" requirements process, 
possibly for new features to be built into the renewed contract.

There are other issues to examine, such as subscribers cutting the cable 
or getting other digital access. Since the municipality gets revenue 
from the franchise fees, this may mean a drop in funding for Public 
Access, Education, and Government video channels.

While it's not within the original committee charter, we may well look 
at overall communications architecture, including municipal fiber and 
Wifi, cellular infrastructure, emergency communications, etc.

--
Howard C. Berkowitz
95 George Ryder Rd.
Chatham, MA 02633
sy () netcases net
(508)241-1362 cell
(866)262-6579 fax