Re: Experiences on Cable Advisory Commissions

[Miles Fidelman <mfidelman () meetinghouse net>]

Hi Howard,

On 3/10/19 4:32 PM, Howard C. Berkowitz wrote:
> 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?

Sure.

In addition to running a policy shop, focused on municipal telecom, and 
consulting to municipalities, I also served on the Mayor's Telecom 
Advisory Board in Newton, MA (essentially the cable board).  Happy to 
share experiences.

Ask away, here, or privately.  Also happy to talk by phone (contact me 
to coordinate time).

Miles Fidelman


> 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.
--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra