Urbana Cable and Telecommunications Commission Meeting

Order Client Peter Folk Order # TC0831596944 How did we do? If you rate this transcript 3 or below, this agent will not work on your future orders Need Help? mailto:support@rev.com Peter Folk: I'll call this meeting of the Champaign-Urbana Cable and Telecommunication Commission to order, at 3:32-ish on January 21st, 2016. Would you please call the roll? Jake Schumacher: Yes. Commissioner Lukeman? Chris Lukeman: Present. Jake Schumacher: Commissioner Walker? Karen Walker: Here. Jake Schumacher: Commissioner Sinder? Dale Sinder: Here. Jake Schumacher: Commissioner Folk? Peter Folk: Here. Jake Schumacher: Commissioner Rosales? Giraldo Rosales: Here. Jake Schumacher: Commissioner Foster? Chris Foster: Here. Jake Schumacher: Commissioner Wadsworth notified us that he would not be able to make it today. Peter Folk: Great. Do I have any proposals for modifications to the agenda? Dale Sinder: Yes. I think we're still in need of doing an officer election this year. Peter Folk: I think that's correct. I guess I'd propose to put that under "New Business." Dale Sinder: Yes. I would too. Peter Folk: Okay. Dale Sinder: I would move that we add officer elections under "New Business." Peter Folk: Second. All in favor? Dale Sinder: Aye. 01 21 16 Page 2 of 36 Male: Aye. All: Aye. Peter Folk: Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Where would we, where would discussion of the upcoming annual report, planning for the upcoming annual report, go? Where do you think? I'd also propose we add an item under "New Business" for a discussion about planning for that, for the upcoming annual report. Dale Sinder: I move that we add that. Peter Folk: All in, oh ... Do we have a second? Male: Second. Peter Folk: All in favor? All: Aye. Male: Aye. Male: Aye. Female: Aye. Peter Folk: All opposed? Okay. Again, that motion also carries unanimously; so with those two modifications, do I have a motion to approve the agenda? Male: So moved. Dale Sinder: Second. Peter Folk: All in favor? Male: Aye. Male: Aye. Female: Aye. Male: Aye. Male: Aye. Peter Folk: Any opposed? Great, and we have an agenda. I apologize, we do not have minutes, so we will, I will do that next meeting, hopefully, with both of these sets of minutes. Moving on to correspondence. 01 21 16 Page 3 of 36 Dale Sinder: Would you like to deal with the cable complaints under "Correspondence" or under "Station Reports?" Peter Folk: Let's deal with them under "Correspondence." Dale Sinder: Okay. We had a few this quarter, for the first time in quite a while, they are in your packet, and I think they're all pretty self-explanatory. Sanford Hess: Jake, I have a question on the third one. The date of the complaint is November 10th, 2015, and under "Actions taken by cable company" it says they made contact on 05/16. Is that May 16th, or is that a typo of January 5th, January 5th, or something else? Dale Sinder: That's a good question. Sanford Hess: It's just hard to get a sense of, what I'm really trying to get at is, it seems like ... I mean, there's a very long and very frustrated, right up here, and then it seems like, because city staff reached out, a resolution was found; or it could be interpreted that city staff reached out, but actually it had been resolved months before, so there's a big swing between those two different scenarios ... These two scenarios. Male: Jason took this one, and I haven't discussed it with him, so I couldn't tell you, but I can find out. Dale Sinder: I just noticed that the date 5/16 corresponds to another resolved or action taken item for the first complaint, so perhaps they just got switched around a little bit. Male: [inaudible 00:04:35] item or something? Sanford Hess: Disembodied voice, do you have any thoughts on that? Male: Ask Comcast. Sanford Hess: Thank you. The recommendation is to follow up with Comcast and find out what, possibly this is a copy-and-paste from the information we received from them. Karen Walker: I think it might be a good idea. If this hasn't been resolved, I think it's a pretty serious complaint. Maybe for anyone who ... Just to at least have it in the minutes, or for anyone who's watching, the gist of it is that a customer, who obviously has a lot of technical experience, has found out that Comcast is treating customers differently, depending on whether they rent modems from Comcast or buy their own to save money. He's got a lot of detail here, and basically he says he's been, there's been a refusal to even discuss the issue clearly. Is this a customer service issue that we have any power to put pressure on Comcast about? Peter Folk: Well, I think that something like this actually would end up falling to the FCC. 01 21 16 Page 4 of 36 Karen Walker: Yeah, he mentions that he considers it an issue with the FCC's Open Internet Order, and he has concerns about the local franchise agreement, so whatever remains of our local agreement, do we ... Peter Folk: Well, I mean, there's still definitely a local franchise, but it doesn't ... Male: Covers cable. Peter Folk: For one thing, it covers cable, and this is an internet issue; but also, I don't think it goes into this kind of detail. This might be covered by the state customer service level requirements, so we could, if there were anywhere to follow up on this in that regard, it would be ... With regard to what they're doing, it would be regarding the customer service level that they're providing, and there are state requirements as to how long it takes you to talk to a person, and what their response requirements are. I haven't read that law in some time, but they might have crossed afoul of that, but really, fundamentally, if they have a policy that they consider, that Comcast considers reasonable about, you know, if you own your own modem, they're not going to replace it for you, which, I think, makes sense. They would need a, the FCC would have to weigh in and tell them that that's not an option. It sounds like he did end up getting it resolved, and it is a fairly technical issue that not very many people would likely run into. Karen Walker: All right, and is there an indication here somewhere that it has been resolved? Peter Folk: It says, "We were able to make contact with ... The cable company was able to make contact with the customer on 5/16, and replaced ... " Karen Walker: Yeah, that's ... Peter Folk: " ... their box." Chris Foster: As noted by Jason, that's the same text on the first one. Karen Walker: Yes. Peter Folk: Yeah; so I see. Chris Foster: It seems that ... Karen Walker: Plus, you want the- Chris Foster: Replacing the cable box doesn't seem to be a resolution to that particular complaint. 01 21 16 Page 5 of 36 Male: I think that's [inaudible 00:08:12] a new [machine 00:08:13]. Karen Walker: Right. Peter Folk: Right. Karen Walker: It looks like ... Peter Folk: True. Okay. Karen Walker: ... this is still in some kind of "to be determined." Peter Folk: Yeah. Karen Walker: I mean, it looks like he wrote this out of frustration, and ... Peter Folk: Right, and he wrote it on 11/15, so ... Karen Walker: He said, I mean, it was sent November. Peter Folk: Right. Sanford Hess: It's also an interesting opening for discussion by this commission as to whether your domain covers internet provided by the cable companies or not. Peter Folk: Well, yeah, it's, I guess, open for discussion. Karen Walker: Perhaps even if we don't have some legal power, at least we could have some [support 00:09:00] ... We could offer some support, some pressure, some assistance. Anything. Because this just sounds like something that really shouldn't be happening, and until I got a better explanation from Comcast, I mean, his explanation here is pretty clear, and pretty even-handed, but I would like to hear from Comcast, and if we can put any, if we can serve as any kind of support or anything, I would think that would be within our purview. Peter Folk: I mean, his goal is to change his IP address, and are we ... Is there anything wrong with discussing the details? No ... Dale Sinder: No. No. Peter Folk: ... so long as we don't say who it is, it's probably fine. His goal is to change his IP address. For the record, the customer's goal is to change his IP address as a residential customer who owns his own modem, Comcast says he needs to buy a new modem to change his IP address, which, on the face of it, it seems pretty weird. Dale Sinder: In fact, I don't know how that would achieve changing his IP address. 01 21 16 Page 6 of 36 Peter Folk: It would change his MAC address, and then Comcast would ... Dale Sinder: Assign him a ... Peter Folk: ... give him a ... Dale Sinder: ... different ... Peter Folk: ... different address. Dale Sinder: ... but not necessarily one of his choosing. Peter Folk: No. Dale Sinder: Right. Peter Folk: Right. Dale Sinder: If he's just trying to change to any different address ... Peter Folk: I think that's what his goal was. I think his goal was to change it to some different address, because his address had been blacklisted by someone as ... He doesn't say the reason, but that would be one reasonable reason. It seems like a weird, it seems weird that that would be Comcast's chosen solution to the problem, but if it is, then they're saying that they need to replace the hard ... You have to replace the hardware with a different, with ... Hardware with a different MAC address to change your IP address. It doesn't seem to me that they are doing anything that is ... They're not treating the customers differently. They've just managed to create a policy that is worse for the people who own their own modems, so I can imagine a variety of different policies that would be slightly worse than ... For the people who own their own modems. Given how infrequent this is, I don't think that you could easily argue that it's a massive conspiracy to try and push people into that, into leasing their hardware. Dale Sinder: We got, I think, the decision of a customer to purchase their own modem incurs certain risks ... Peter Folk: Yes. Dale Sinder: ... going along with that. I think Comcast's position, frankly, is not unreasonable. Peter Folk: If, perhaps, unfortunate for the ... Dale Sinder: Right. Peter Folk: ... specific individual. 01 21 16 Page 7 of 36 Dale Sinder: Unfortunate, but not unreasonable. Peter Folk: Yeah. I would suggest, if the customer happens to be listening, that they might try turning off their modem for a couple days, which would probably ... You probably want to do it for ten days, probably Comcast has a timeout on their DHCP leases. That would timeout, they give it out to some other person, and then when you sign on, might get it again; or they could rent a modem for a month, and then go back with their other modem; so I don't think that this is probably ... In my personal opinion, unless this becomes a pattern, then I don't see any reason to take it out by ... My guess is that he filed a complaint with the FCC, though I didn't see it in our, in the list. I didn't get through that entire list of FCC complaints, so ... Karen, thoughts? Karen Walker: I guess it just, what concerns me is that even if they have some technical explanation for this policy, it's, doesn't appear to be a policy that's necessary, and, I mean, you're supposed to have the option to buy your own modem. Their rental prices for the modems are, I believe, very expensive. They're a huge profit item for them, and they, even when you call, they say, "Oh, you can get your own modem." This may be just one of the ways that they give you lip service to that, but discourage you from doing it otherwise. I would like to think that it was a little, that when they offer you the option to buy your own modem, it's really a fair option; and if this is the kind of policy they're pursuing, it looks like they're definitely trying to discourage it. Peter Folk: Do any of the other commissioners have any experience with owning their own modem, and have they found any other items where they seem to be discouraging that practice? Dale Sinder: I used to have Comcast service and own my own modem, and I did not have occasion to want to change my IP address, so it never arose. Peter Folk: Were there any other issues with things that seemed like it was harder to do because you had your own modem? Dale Sinder: On the contrary, it gave me more flexibility than I had with the Comcast-supplied modem. Peter Folk: Okay. Which also was the case here. Dale Sinder: Yeah. Peter Folk: He was able to edit his MAC address. Dale Sinder: Yeah. Karen Walker: I actually found it difficult to ... I pursued this a few years ago, and Comcast has a 01 21 16 Page 8 of 36  list on their site that is full of arcana, all kinds of codes, "These are the modems that might or might not be compatible." When I called, they said, "You have to go to Best Buy. That's the only place to get them," so I went to Best Buy, and they kind of shrugged their shoulders. They didn't know anything; so I kind of went back to that chart and finally gave up because, as you said, there is a risk: You pay 100 or so for a modem, and if it's not perfectly compatible, you're out that money, so ... Dale Sinder: Well ... Karen Walker: I finally gave up. Dale Sinder: ... the good thing about Best Buy is, they have a very liberal return policy if something doesn't work out for you. Karen Walker: Yes. Except when I was out there, actually, the guy didn't even know where to start, so it would have been a total gamble. I mean, I would have been as good at picking one out as she said, "The experts at Best Buy will help you." Peter Folk: Perhaps that is something that we could look into in the future is, developing a ... Pardon me. Developing a list of modems that are compatible with our specific Comcast. Karen Walker: Yeah, an easy to use list. Peter Folk: Sure. Karen Walker: I mean, they claim that it's on their website, but there's a list of 30 there with as many as 5 or 6 asterisks after them about "if, when, then," so after a while you get frustrated. Peter Folk: In my experience, often those lists are out of date. Karen Walker: Yes. Yes. Peter Folk: All right, I guess we can put that on the list of stuff that we might do that would be helpful. Any other discussions about these complaints? Sanford Hess: Commissioner, Chair Folk, just to verify, so you're saying the Cable Commission wants to take on the task of compiling a list of modems? Peter Folk: I'm not saying we wish to take on that task. I'm suggesting that giving guidance to the public on that topic might be something that we could do, either with a list or a bulk purchase day, or something of that sort. I'm suggesting it might be something we want to do, not that we're committing to doing at this meeting. Sanford Hess: Thank you. 01 21 16 Page 9 of 36 Dale Sinder: I guess you asked earlier about my own experience with buying a modem. I did get mine at Best Buy. Worked without a problem. I, too, asked them about compatibility with Comcast, and they said, "They all are." Peter Folk: That would make sense, given where they're selling them. Dale Sinder: Yes. Peter Folk: It would be kind of weird for them to sell a modem that's not compatible, but there are lots of weird things, so they could still do that. All right, I'll take a minute, since we're on the topic of complaints, to talk about the FCC complaint, so at the last meeting, we talked about how we are no longer getting a comprehensive list of the complaints because now some of them go through the FCC directly. In addition, we've never gotten the complaints from providers other than Comcast, so I reached out to the FCC and did a FOIA request for all of the complaints related to any of our ZIP codes on internet, phone, or TV. We got a list of 156 from 2015. I've looked through some of those. A fair number of them were not related to anything that we would be talking about. They were related to things like robocalls and things like that. Probably the majority of them are related to robocalls, but I think I would propose that, by the annual meeting, we come up with a breakdown of exactly what the total complaints in 2015 were, and how they ... Whether there seems to be an issue that we want to try and bring up with the operators, either AT&T or Comcast or ITV3. Dale Sinder: Yeah, I went through all of those complaints, and, as you noted, I found they were mostly unwanted calls. I did mention it to Chris before the meeting, and he might perhaps have something to say about what consumers could do to protect themselves. It's certainly not a phone company problem or a provider problem. It's something we just have to contend with today. Peter Folk: Okay. All right. Other correspondences, did we have other correspondence, Jake? Okay. Moving on to unfinished business. There's nothing on the agenda for that, and I think we tabled the rules and regs from last time. Is there anything else that others are aware of that we need to address here? Okay. Moving on to reports, committee reports. I don't think we have any outstanding committees with reports, staff report. Jake Schumacher: I should just note that I have included in here the second half of 2014, our PEG report, but it was my understanding the Commission was working on doing the annual report that had been due last July, and this is the UPTV PEG report that would have accompanied that. I have switched the annual report from a fiscal year basis to a calendar year basis, for a number of reasons; but I think it will serve us better in terms of multiple uses for this report, so this is just the remainder of 2014 that hadn't been reported on previously, and I also, I changed the filters in terms of the programming descriptions. They're roughly equivalent to what we used before. It's a little bit more granular, because I also went by week rather than by month, 01 21 16 Page 10 of 36  because broadcast schedules are based on weeks and not months, so it's a little easier to manipulate. I might, in the upcoming report that will have all of 2015, which I've just started to work on, I may just report the quarterly figures, so rather than 52 separate lines of data, so ... Peter Folk: Is that the extent of your report? Okay. I had a quick question. When you say member, staff or member-produced or sponsored programs, can you talk about member or staff-sponsored programs, as opposed to produced? Jake Schumacher: Yeah. We have members that sponsor programs that are not produced by them, produced elsewhere, but they sponsor their broadcast. We currently have 3 out-of- state members who sponsor, in those cases, programs that they produce. We have local sponsors for programs that are produced elsewhere, things like Gay USA, Democracy Now. What's the other one I was just thinking of? Oh, 911 TV; so those are sponsored by local members, but produced elsewhere. Sanford Hess: Jake, is it correct that no content is sponsored by staff? Jake Schumacher: Yeah, that's true. Peter Folk: How, would it be feasible to either include a column, or somehow make it clear the number of hours of sponsored, as opposed to produced, programming? Jake Schumacher: Well, this is the single most time-consuming task in my entire year, and I've been doing my best to try to make this a more manageable task ... Peter Folk: Oh, okay. Jake Schumacher: ... and to make sure that the information mining, the data mining, is going to be useful, and in the past, basically, a lot of data mining's been done. It's been looked at once, and then it goes in a drawer I [fortunately 00:24:34] considered that. Peter Folk: Yeah. Unfortunately, I think that's probably, it's more passing interest then pressing, so ... Jake Schumacher: Yeah, I mean if I could slice and dice this a million ways, I would, just because I'd be interested too. Peter Folk: Yeah. Chris Foster: Jake, I just was curious. I'm assuming that there's some type of equipment with transition or issues on weeks 28 and 29. Jake Schumacher: The Nexus blew up. Chris Foster: Yeah, that's what I figured. 01 21 16 Page 11 of 36 Jake Schumacher: That's exactly what happened. It failed once, Jason got it working, and then it failed catastrophically, so we were pretty good to get back on as quickly as we did. Peter Folk: Okay. Okay. Moving on to Champaign? Janet Ahern: Back in December we did several city staff ... Peter Folk: Is your mic on? Janet Ahern: Yes. Can you hear me? Peter Folk: Now I can. Janet Ahern: Back in December we did several winter greetings with the city staff, just last week, or no. Yeah, last week we did a taping of Champaign Connection, so I'm in the process of editing that now. Last week, also, was a live telecast of the Champaign Public Library Director Candidate Forums, and that was very well attended. We were very happy for that; and I helped Jason out with the MLK video. That's it. Peter Folk: Cool. Janet Ahern: Oh, and that PEG report, I gave that to you guys, I think, two meetings ago, so you should have it. Peter Folk: Now, operator reports. We do have one operator here, though I guess not our franchisee, but an operator nonetheless. Chris, if you would like to join us? Go ahead and introduce yourself, and then ... Chris Warwick: Sure. Okay, I wish my talker was [louder 00:26:38] ... Okay. Thank you. I'm Chris Warwick with AT&T. I'm the Director of External Affairs for central Illinois. Peter Folk: Thank you for coming. Chris Warwick: Yes. Chairman Folk, I received your email asking for a couple things regarding current list of package pricing, any changes to U-verse, and then FCC [forwarded 00:27:01] complaints and then low income access programs; so I can just go ahead and address those individually, if that's all right. We do have some, some packages. We have 6 main packages, and I could read those off to you, if you'd like: Our lowest package is 19.99, and that's for 145 channels, 175 channels at 29.99, at 240 channels that's our ultimate package, and that is 240 channels at 39.99. We have an entertainment package at 24.99, and that's 150 channels. An extra package, 34.99, that's 220 channels, and then our premier is 315 channels, and that is 89.99; but all of those are current on our website, for folks to get the most current rates. I mean, the ones that I've read to you, I pulled them this morning, so that's the most current rates that we have for U-verse packages. Peter Folk: Those are all permanent rates, or are they intro rates? 01 21 16 Page 12 of 36 Chris Warwick: These are the current offer rates, so those are all offers that are currently out there, so they do change from time to time ... Peter Folk: Okay. Chris Warwick: ... and then regarding the pricing, there was a letter, [per 00:28:30] requirements that were sent out to both the Clerk of Champaign and the Clerk of Urbana, with some price changes. Those changes were going to take effect on the January 28th bill. The monthly rate for the following U-verse services will increase by $2. That's U-family and U-family All In, that would go up by $2. There's a couple plans that will go up by $3. That's our U100, U200, U200 All In, U200 Latino, and U200 Latino All In, and then there will be one that will be going up by $4. That's the U300, 300 All In, U300 Latino, U300 Latino All In, the 400, the 450, the 450 All In, the U-Latino, and the U-Latino 450 All In, and then the monthly rate billed for each non-DVR TV receiver has increased by $1, and the Regulatory Video Cost Recovery Charge will be increased by a penny each month. The monthly broadcast surcharge will also increase by $1 in all Illinois markets. This charge is to recover a portion of the amount of local broadcast charges, AT&T, the cost to [carrier 00:29:45] channels, and ... Yeah. Customers will have their current U-verse promotions, and will have that price continue until the promotion ends or expires; so that information was all, that was sent out to, again, the two clerks in the two municipalities on December 4th ... Peter Folk: Great, thank you. Chris Warwick: ... and then regarding charges ... Sorry, charges, changes with U-verse and DirecTV, as a result of the DirecTV merger, there are no plan changes at this point, so there's nothing I have to report out on that. I have not received the FCC [forwarded 00:30:22] complaints. I don't know if there's any in the report that you received, but I have not received any ... If I can get a copy of that report ... Peter Folk: Sure. Chris Warwick: ... before the meeting or before the next meeting, I can also double check to make sure they're on there; and then for low-income access programs, as far as U-verse or for cable, those services, we don't have a low income program. For our internet option, I'm sure we have something, but I don't have that information at the time, just because this is germane to the cable, so ... We don't have a particular low-price plan for cable or U-verse services, [TV 00:31:07] services. Peter Folk: All right. Do any of the Commissioners have any other questions for Chris? Chris Warwick: Then just, sorry, a couple other notes. We did win the 2015 North American Company of the Year for Multichannel Video by Frost & Sullivan, and also the North American Company of the Year for Consumer Communication Services, also by 01 21 16 Page 13 of 36  Frost & Sullivan. Peter Folk: Cool. Congratulations. Chris Warwick: Thank you. Peter Folk: Okay. Chris Warwick: Okay, thank you. Peter Folk: Great. Chris Warwick: Yes, sir. Giraldo Rosales: I do subscribe to AT&T ... Chris Warwick: Thank you. Giraldo Rosales: ... but do complaints or calls regarding service go all the way to Calcutta? Chris Warwick: Do they go to Calcutta? Giraldo Rosales: Yes. Chris Warwick: They would go to one of our various call centers. I'm not sure which call centers are active at which times, but if there's any Commission complaints, I know that Jake has reached out to me in the past if there's been an issue and if any of the Commissioners would like to contact me, [because 00:32:18] I'll have my business card, and help you resolve [to them 00:32:22]. Giraldo Rosales: Okay, thank you. Peter Folk: Okay. Great. Thank you very much for coming. Male: Thank you. Peter Folk: I'll summarize that, with regard to the rate plans, that those seem like very good deals; so that's cool. I think it'll be interesting news to the people watching, that there are those offers out there; and if they did want to sign up, what's ... Would you mind giving the website? Chris Warwick: Att.com ... Peter Folk: Att.com. Chris Warwick: Look under TV, and then they will have to make their choice between TV-Verse or [DIRECTV 00:33:22] ... 01 21 16 Page 14 of 36 Peter Folk: Okay. Att.com/, or, and then click on TV. Chris Warwick: It's right at the top. There's a banner that has, you know, Wireless, TV and then it also should have [virtual plan 00:33:19] Peter Folk: Excellent. Dale Sinder: Also, for people who subscribe to AT&T services and have previously subscribed to DirecTV, is there any way to consolidate those bills, or to otherwise gain an advantage by having those all in one place now? Chris Warwick: I think there's always an advantage to bundling your services. At this point, I'm not aware that DirecTV can, you can bundle your DirecTV bill with our other services, at this point. I'm not, that I'm not aware of. Dale Sinder: Yeah. Thank you. Male: Okay. Peter Folk: We did reach out to the other 2 operators and [Art 00:34:16] had a conflict. I'm not sure what we heard back from ITV3? Dale Sinder: I received no response from ITV3. Peter Folk: Okay. Okay. Now, moving on to new business, and recall that we had 2 items there. The first was officer elections, and we need to elect a Chair, a Vice-Chair, and a Secretary. Is that correct? Dale Sinder: Secretary and Clerk. Peter Folk: Clerk. Okay, so if we elect a Clerk, that will ... Then Jake will no longer be our Clerk, and the person who calls the roll will not be Jake? Is that correct? Is that everyone's understanding? Okay, then whoever gets elected to that, they need a list, because ... Dale Sinder: Which, fortunately, is available on the web. Peter Folk: I will start the bidding with nominating Dale Sinder for Chair. I'm the current Chair, and there's just been some expression of concern about conflicts with me being Chair, and so I'm looking for someone else to have that name plate, name title, yeah. Dale Sinder: I guess I'd say I'm reluctant, but ... I would hope someone else would volunteer here, but if that's the will of the Commission, I guess I'll do it. Peter Folk: Karen was the other person that I thought, I don't know if I can nominate 2 people 01 21 16 Page 15 of 36  to the same position? Karen Walker: No, I will repeat my feeling that there is no conflict here. I don't know whoever has seen it. We aren't recommending internet service. If you had a commission of people who had no possible conflict with any media at all in this town, for one, it would probably be hard to find people who are willing to serve and had any knowledge at all, so I will repeat my objection to that; but if you feel that you're being pressured, then I would vote for you, I would vote for [Kerl 00:36:42]. I would vote for both of you together, so we could have have co-presidents for all I care, but that is, either one would be a fine choice. Peter Folk: Would you accept the nomination yourself? Karen Walker: No. Peter Folk: Okay. Karen Walker: I've already found 2 people better than me, so I don't ... Peter Folk: Okay. Are there any other nominations for Chair? Okay. Would the Commission like to vote on Dale Sinder for Chair? Well, I'll call a vote from the Commission for Dale Sinder for Chair. Clerk, if you would mind a couple of last times calling roll. Jake Schumacher: Sure. Commissioner Foster. Chris Foster: I would vote for Dale, yes. Jake Schumacher: Okay. Commissioner Rosales? Giraldo Rosales: Dale, yes. Jake Schumacher: Commissioner Folk? Peter Folk: Yes. Jake Schumacher: Commissioner Sinder? Dale Sinder: I'll pass. Jake Schumacher: Okay. Discretion the better part of valor. Commissioner Walker? Karen Walker: Yes, I will vote for Dale. Jake Schumacher: Commissioner Lukeman? Chris Lukeman: Yes. 01 21 16 Page 16 of 36 Jake Schumacher: Commissioner Sinder is now the new Chair. Dale Sinder: Okay, in that case, I guess we will move on to election of a Vice-Chair. Are there any nominations for Vice-Chair? Karen Walker: Well, perhaps Peter would want to continue doing that. Would that only be half of a conflict? Peter Folk: I think it's a quarter of a conflict, because we determined that it was only half a conflict to start out with. I'd be willing. Yes. Male: I second that. Dale Sinder: Any other nominations for Vice-Chair? Hearing none, would the Clerk call the roll for Peter for Vice-Chair? Jake Schumacher: Yes. Commissioner Foster. Chris Foster: Yes. Jake Schumacher: Commissioner Rosales? Giraldo Rosales: Yes. Jake Schumacher: Commissioner Folk? Peter Folk: Yes. Oh, [sorry 00:39:06]. Jake Schumacher: Commissioner Sinder? Dale Sinder: Yes. Jake Schumacher: Commissioner Walker? Karen Walker: Yes. Jake Schumacher: Commissioner Lukeman. Chris Lukeman: Yes. Jake Schumacher: Peter Folk is now the Vice-Chair. Dale Sinder: We move now to election of a Secretary or Clerk. First, I suppose we should decide what term we would like to give it. Is there any discussion on that topic? Peter Folk: My guess is, it's supposed to be Clerk, because that's what it is now. 01 21 16 Page 17 of 36 Dale Sinder: Yeah. Okay, any further discussion? Sanford Hess: Was part of the question the term is in what you want to call it, or the term is in the length of the office remaining? Dale Sinder: No, the length would be 1 year, as with the rest of the officers. Sanford Hess: Even though this is a delayed election? Dale Sinder: The election would take place at the same time as the rest of the officers, is what I should have said. Sanford Hess: Okay. Would that be ... Are these 6-month terms? Dale Sinder: These are 1-year terms, as specified by both the Commission rules and, I believe, the city councils of Champaign and Urbana. Sanford Hess: Where I'm digging at is, since this is a delayed election, are we changing the election cycle now to 1 year, [changes 00:40:26] in January? Dale Sinder: No. We would continue the same election cycle, I believe. Peter Folk: I would suggest we might want to table that question until we can actually look it up. Dale Sinder: Yeah, might be a good idea. Okay. Do we need a vote on name of the office, or shall we just move ahead with Clerk? Male: I think Clerk is the current name of the office, so ... Dale Sinder: Okay. We'll accept that as the name of the office. Are there any nominations for Clerk? Giraldo Rosales: I nominate Chris Lukeman. Chris Lukeman: I would prefer to decline the nomination. I am not very good with the procedure that might be involved in such a nomination. Karen Walker: Maybe we should talk about exactly what the duties would be. Just keeping minutes? Dale Sinder: I believe the duties would be keeping minutes, calling roll, keeping track of any voice notes. Peter Folk: Jake, is the agenda something that you handle, or is that something that the Clerk handles? 01 21 16 Page 18 of 36 Jake Schumacher: Well, I handle it as the Clerk, and this is a new position. Dale Sinder: That would be another duty of the Clerk. Jake Schumacher: As far as I understand it, I would remain your contact point with City staff. I would be your staff contact; and I should probably talk to the City Clerk and clarify exactly what is possible. For instance, I don't think your Clerk, if it's not a city employee, could access the city website to post meetings, so that would be something that I would continue to have to do, as your staff contact. In terms of everything else, I think basically you've summed it up. There is the assembly of packets. Again, I could talk to Phyllis about that and see exactly what the protocol would be. Dale Sinder: Yeah, if you could do that for us, I'd appreciate it. Jake Schumacher: Absolutely. Peter Folk: The main sticking block, if I recall, was actually the minutes, is that correct? That's, by far, the largest thing that you're ... Jake Schumacher: Yeah. It's part of the whole ball of wax. Peter Folk: Would you be amenable to a clerk role that did not include the minutes, where the minutes were, for example, spread over the Commission, and you continued in through the remainder of the items? Jake Schumacher: Yeah, I would feel more comfortable if I could talk to Phyllis first and find out exactly what the parameters are for a non-staff Clerk. Peter Folk: Okay. Jake Schumacher: That would be my suggestion. Perhaps you could assign the duties of Secretary to one of your own, and then we can table the question of Clerk, till the next meeting, just as you tabled the other question. Peter Folk: Sure. Jake Schumacher: If that makes sense. Dale Sinder: Basically this would be the role of taking care of minutes, and the rest would, we continue as is until another determination is made. Male: Yeah. Peter Folk: I will move, then, that we table the election of a Clerk till the next meeting, and assign minute-taking to the membership of the Commission as follows: Each meeting we would assign 2 members of the Commission to be responsible for producing the minutes for the next meeting, and those members would be 01 21 16 Page 19 of 36  expected to either split up the task among themselves, or meet together to get it done. The reason I proposed 2 is that I found that, at least in my case, 1 didn't get it done. Dale Sinder: You're proposing, basically, is a redundancy consideration. Peter Folk: Yes, or team effort. Their choice. Dale Sinder: Well, reliability theory aside ... Karen Walker: Pretty hard to team up on minutes. Dale Sinder: Yeah, on minutes. It either gets done or it doesn't get done. Peter Folk: Well, you can definitely team up on, the person takes the first half of the meeting, the second person the second; but anyway, my motion is out there. Feel free to amend. Dale Sinder: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:45:43] I'll second. Chris Foster: I like the recommendation, but I agree with him. I'm not sure we need to assign 2 people. Maybe if we just assign 1 person. I mean, it seems if we just did 1 person per meeting to do the minutes, that would be sufficient. Dale Sinder: Yeah. Karen Walker: I think it might work if we just all took a turn. Male: Yeah, exactly. Dale Sinder: Yeah. Karen Walker: Somebody volunteer at every meeting, and when it's, when you haven't done it for a while and everybody's looking at you, it's your turn. Peter Folk: My motion failed. Second. Dale Sinder: Failing on a second. Yes. Do I have a motion here to ... Chris Foster: I motion that we ... What was it ... We table the discussion of Clerk to the next meeting, and we assign minutes to one Commission member each meeting. Dale Sinder: On a rotating ... Chris Foster: On a rotating basis. Dale Sinder: Rotating basis. 01 21 16 Page 20 of 36 Karen Walker: I like that. Dale Sinder: Do I hear a second? Karen Walker: I second. Dale Sinder: All in favor? All: Aye. Dale Sinder: Aye. Volunteer for next meeting? Peter Folk: I would move that instead of taking volunteers, we do it alphabetically. Dale Sinder: Second. Karen Walker: I second. Since the W. Dale Sinder: All in favor? All: Aye. Dale Sinder: Aye. Chris Foster: By next meeting do we mean the minutes for this meeting are done by the person for the next meeting, right? Dale Sinder: Yes. Yes. Male: We can provide a video file or a link to a video. Male: Are they still put on the web? Male: Yes. Male: Okay. Dale Sinder: Peter, are you intending to finish up the meeting minutes from the previous meeting? Peter Folk: I think I'm the first alphabetically. Yes ... Chris Foster: I could, if you wanted to count that meeting as your first, I could be, I would be next, I think. Dale Sinder: [That's true 00:47:49]. 01 21 16 Page 21 of 36 Peter Folk: I would be [OFOS 00:47:58], right. Dale Sinder: You're better positioned, I guess, for that one. Peter Folk: I'd be happy to do either both of them or one of them, and Chris do ... Dale Sinder: Generosity. Peter Folk: Well, I figure if I'm going to do it, I might as well make a day of it. Sure. I'll do both meetings. Dale Sinder: Okay. Thank you, Peter. Is there any other new business? I guess we had the second item, which was, Peter, you mentioned that was discussion of ... Male: Was that the [crosstalk 00:48:32] Male: The planning for the annual report. Dale Sinder: The annual report, yes. Peter Folk: Planning for the annual report. Great. Great. Dale Sinder: If you would carry on there, discussing what you had in mind? Peter Folk: Sure, so at our previous meeting we discussed an attempt to get a more invigorated annual report, and I think there was some discussion of issuing our last, the last annual report that was maybe finished but never issued; so we previously identified several things that we wanted to address in the new annual report, with regard to the specific ... We wanted to talk about state of media in the community, we wanted to talk about state of internet in the community. That opens up a question of internet, so we are cable and telecommunications. The FCC did rule that internet is a telecommunications facility, so that would put it under our purview. I believe that's in the court right now, so I don't know what that means for us, but I would suggest that we ... Previously, the Broadband Access Committee was talking about internet, so it seems to be something that we've been tasked with by the City Council, in any case. Dale Sinder: As we're advisory, at the best, there's no harm in it. Peter Folk: Right; so state of video in the community, state of internet in the community, any emerging trends that the council needs to be aware of, and how they deal with it, and the PEG reports and analysis of the value that those bring to the communities, so those are kind of 4 areas that we could give to individuals to do for the 2015-16 report. I don't remember the status of the 2014-15 report or the 2013-14 report, so maybe ... 01 21 16 Page 22 of 36 Dale Sinder: I seem to recall we had one which has gotten lost somewhere, and I don't know where that might be. Peter Folk: Well, if it got lost, it's somewhere in my possession. I very, very rarely actually lose something. It's just in a very large email inbox. Dale Sinder: Right. Yes. Sanford Hess: May I suggest that for the prior year reports, it would be sufficient to do the PEG numbers that have sort of traditionally been part of the reports? Which, if we needed to pull again, Jake, would it be pain, to pull them again, or you have them somewhere, the PEG reports that we've produced in the past? Male: Oh, yeah, we've got those. For sure. Sanford Hess: Chris, and Chris, if we had to recreate, so ... I think, I mean my suggestion to the Commission is to ... If we need to get those filed, let's catch up and file them, but let's focus on the ... Dale Sinder: The future. Sanford Hess: ... 2015-16. Dale Sinder: Yeah. I think that's a very reasonable suggestion. I would propose that we go with that, if there is no objection. Chris Foster: Just, so we are going to continue to do '14-'15, '15-'16-style reports, not just solid years, like Jake was saying how he had changed his report to, to us standing here? I just didn't know if that's how we were going to continue our report? Peter Folk: The municipal code requires our report within a certain timeframe after we receive the operator's report. If I recall, the operator's report comes out in Spring, and that's what led to ours being normally in, at our July meeting ... Male: Yeah. Peter Folk: ... so that I think that ... If I recall, also, the AT&T report to the ICC comes in the first quarter, and so we can look at that in the second quarter, so I think that's what led to the timing on those reports ... Dale Sinder: That's my understanding as well. Peter Folk: ... but it might make sense to treat it as a report on 2015 instead of a report on 2015-2016 ... Dale Sinder: Yes. 01 21 16 Page 23 of 36 Peter Folk: ... since it takes some time to compile it. Sanford Hess: Actually, this is the 2016 fiscal year, so ... Peter Folk: Right, but the report would be on ... It would be our 2016 report, but it would be on the ... Dale Sinder: 2015. Peter Folk: 2015 year. Dale Sinder: Year. Peter Folk: The progress in ... Sanford Hess: 2015 calendar year? Peter Folk: Calendar year. Dale Sinder: Yeah. Chris, is it your understanding that these reports from AT&T go to the ICC on calendar year bases? Chris Warwick: That is my understanding. The, I believe it's actually, I believe it's a June report that is filed ... Dale Sinder: Okay. Chris Warwick: ... with the FCC. I don't know the exact date of the release, but it is in, it is if [I've 00:54:14] recalled correctly it covers June 2014 ... Dale Sinder: Okay, thank you. Chris Warwick: It covers, so the report released in 2015 for June of 2014, [this is 00:54:24] calendar year. Dale Sinder: Right. Peter Folk: I guess I was thinking that we would follow that same style, where our report is on the previous year, but it comes about 6 months late due to the timing of the operator reports, and any pressing trends in the next 6 months we can address as well. Chris Foster: Then, in preparing for the 2016, we'll do the calendar year 2015, previous reports were done in half years, so anything that needs to be caught up should still be done in a half year? Peter Folk: I think the suggestion was that for the previous reports, if they're not already 01 21 16 Page 24 of 36  prepared, we just basically report on the ... We forward the operator report, operator and PEG reports, and then for the 2016 report, we cover the year of, the full year of 2015, with anything that comes up in the following 6 months that seems pressing. Dale Sinder: That sounds right. Yeah. Peter Folk: Okay. Dale Sinder: I don't ... Is there any need to have a vote on that, or is that just a procedure where you ... Peter Folk: I don't think we need to ... Dale Sinder: No. Peter Folk: ... vote on anything. Dale Sinder: Okay. Anything else, Peter, that you have in that area of reporting? Peter Folk: Well, I think that in order to move this forward we should probably figure out who's going to do each of those 4 sections, so it was state of video, state of internet, operator reports, and PEG reports, or operator reports and commentary, and PEG reports and commentary. I can address the things that would be easiest for me to contribute. I, on a general basis, keep progress on, keep ... Dale Sinder: Abreast. Peter Folk: Keep abreast, thank you, of developments in both the market, local market, and nationally, about video and internet, so it would probably be relatively easy for me to at least create a draft of those two parts. I would ask that there be somebody else to work with to finalize those drafts. Dale Sinder: I volunteer to assist with that. Peter Folk: Okay. Regarding the operator reports and commentary, what I'm imagining that would involve is reading the operator report and then discussing with either ... It won't be time to discuss it with the other Commissioners unless we call a public meeting. Dale Sinder: Special meeting. Peter Folk: Special meeting, which is not a terrible thing to do, so just ... Sanford Hess: Let's talk about the timing for a second; so if the report from AT&T comes in June ... Peter Folk: Right. 01 21 16 Page 25 of 36 Dale Sinder: Right. Sanford Hess: ... I looked at the ordinance. We have 60 days, so then you have your July meeting, and then as long as you ... Male: True. Sanford Hess: ... turn it around relatively quickly after that ... Peter Folk: We could discuss it at the July meeting, and not have to call a special meeting ... Dale Sinder: Yeah. Peter Folk: ... but in order to ratify the report, we'd probably have to ... Dale Sinder: Call a special meeting. Peter Folk: ... call a special meeting. Dale Sinder: True. Peter Folk: Okay, so I guess I would request that someone else volunteer to read those and address any questions that the Commission comes up with, and write up the summary, the first draft summary, of the operator reports and our commentary on them for 2015. Yeah, see if there's somebody who's willing to do that. Dale Sinder: Any volunteers? Karen Walker: I will be glad to help. Are you saying we'd be, have all the operator reports and reports in front of us, and essentially write a summary, or ... Peter Folk: I think so. Karen Walker: Go touch on issues that we ... Peter Folk: I think a summary, and touching on issues either that we had, or that we had asked questions about and found either resolution, or issues that the council should be aware of with them; so we'd have the reports in front of us prior to our July meeting, and then at the July meeting, as a Commission, we can discuss them, and then that person's job would be to take those issues and either write them down or write them up as in the report form. Karen Walker: Okay, so we would have some consensus on what issues we wanted to highlight. Dale Sinder: Yes. 01 21 16 Page 26 of 36 Karen Walker: Okay, yeah, I'll be glad to volunteer for that ... Peter Folk: Great. PEG reports on commentary might be better if it ... Well, I don't know whether it should or should not be a PEG person, if they'd be willing ... Chris Foster: I can volunteer for that. Dale Sinder: I thought I had, but someone else is certainly welcome to have it. Peter Folk: Oh, the PEG reports? Dale Sinder: Yeah. Peter Folk: Oh, okay. Dale Sinder: I thought I'd volunteered to ... Male: Oh, [no that's 01:00:53]. Dale Sinder: ... summarize those. Male: Great. Chris Foster: I wasn't meaning to step on anybody's toes, so ... Dale Sinder: No, that's okay. Karen Walker: You can have [that you're 01:00:58] alternate, in case you're unreliable. Dale Sinder: Yes. Peter Folk: All right, and then I'll just mention that I think there also needs to be kind of a wrangler who puts it all together and makes sure that it's presentable and organizes this special meeting, and I don't want to be the one responsible for that, because I've failed at that in the past, so I would ask that somebody else just take the ... Crack the whip. Would you be interested in doing that? Giraldo Rosales: It's an election year, and my county board commitments are full. Peter Folk: Okay. Dale Sinder: I suppose that's a job for the Chair of the Commission. Peter Folk: Okay. I'll try to be as compliant as I can. Sanford Hess: There's also a commissioner who's not here today. 01 21 16 Page 27 of 36 Peter Folk: Ah, the old "assign the unwanted duties to the guy who didn't show up." Dale Sinder: That's a sure way to get them not to show up. Karen Walker: That's why the rest of us showed up. Jake Schumacher: I was going to suggest the minutes be assigned to the last person arriving. Peter Folk: I can tell you that's probably not going to work out well. Dale Sinder: Okay. We covered that, Peter. Peter Folk: I feel we've at least made some good progress on it. Dale Sinder: Okay. Sanford Hess: Can we just sort of briefly ... Dale Sinder: Summarize that. Sanford Hess: Well ... Dale Sinder: Okay, go. What did you have in mind? Sanford Hess: No, no, I was going to just kind of throw on top of that, just to reemphasize that we have set up a shared email address ... Dale Sinder: Oh, yes, and that ... Sanford Hess: ... so that, should there be topics that people feel are worthy to include for state of video, state of internet, we have a method for people to communicate that to everybody. Dale Sinder: Not having it in front of me, could you remind us what that email address is? It's cablecommission@ ... Sanford Hess: We'll send it out after the meeting, yeah. I would hesitate to say the wrong thing. Karen Walker: Plus, then you get spammed anyway. Peter Folk: You just got, well, it's probably a public address. You would have received a message from it today, January 21st, so should be at the top of your inbox also, or somewhere in your inbox, at least. Dale Sinder: Cablecommission@urbanaillionois.us. All one word, cablecommission. Peter Folk: Sanford, my brain was wandering when you were saying that. Did we address all of 01 21 16 Page 28 of 36  what you brought up? Was it just a matter of talking about the address, or did you want to talk about what we're doing on that? Sanford Hess: No, I think that's good. I mean, we have responsible people identified. We have a mechanism to provide information to everybody. I think the rubber will meet the road next meeting, and the meeting after when we actually craft what's going to be in the content of the report. Peter Folk: Yes, so with that in mind, given that we have some stuff that will need to be done at the July meeting, I guess I'll target next meeting for a draft of the first 2 items. Yeah. Dale Sinder: A suggestion I have is that, with regard to minutes, we try to get those out to other commission members as soon as possible after a meeting, rather than as late as possible. It just, it makes it easier for us to have our memory straight as to what happened, and to be looking forward, so if you could put some priority on that, I'd appreciate it. Peter Folk: Okay. I will try. Jake, do you know when the meeting is normally posted? Jake Schumacher: Sorry, could you say that again? Peter Folk: When is the video of the meeting normally available? Jake Schumacher: It depends somewhat on our workflow, but usually within a week. Peter Folk: Okay. Chris Foster: I had a quick question regarding the PEG reports. I know with the discussion of how the Commission is moving forward, but I would ... What I'm working on putting the part together, the PEG part of the report, is the continued reports from Urbana and Champaign considered not, we're not supposed to be using the staff time, is that considered improper use of staff time, or is that something that you guys wouldn't continue to do [anyways 01:06:04]? Male: We would do it anyway. Yeah. Chris Foster: Okay. I just wanted to be clear on that. I wasn't asking you to do something that you guys weren't wanting to do. Jake Schumacher: No, it will continue ... My goal with the UPTVs is to put it on calendar year basis and present it first to the UPTV Commission in their March meeting. Chris Foster: All right. Well, I'll be in contact with all of you, just, I'll get your reports, and I'll compile a whole thing then. Male: Yeah. 01 21 16 Page 29 of 36 Chris Foster: Okay. Dale Sinder: Okay. I think that concludes our new business then, unless anybody has other items. Moving on to audience participation. Seeing no one in the audience except our representative from AT&T, we'll move on to Commissioners' comments. I believe, Peter, you indicated you had some comments to share. Peter Folk: Yeah, let me find my notes. Regarding the cable commission email thing, what I've done over the last few months is, I've, as I read articles I've tagged them with "This might be relevant to the Cable Commission," and then I went back through them last night and just wrote a brief summary of kind of the ... As they group together in topic, topically. I think it worked significantly better to do that, than to just try and send them out as they came through. Initially, my goal was to send them out, whenever I see an article to send it out immediately, but I think it was actually helpful for me to allow them to batch together and then if there was back and forth on a given topic in the media, then I was able to capture that. The three kind of major topics that I found that were relevant to the commission, and to the public, and to the councils were ... The first was that basically internet speeds are increasing, so we would expect that, but there's a lot of concern among both the policymakers and also the public that maybe they're not increasing as fast as the public wants them to be; and I found a variety of articles. Internet speed is basically, average internet speed has tripled since 2011. AT&T in particular was found to be beating Moore's Law. Now, there's a special law for networks called, I think it's Nielsen's Law or Neiman's Law, I can never remember that. It's slightly different than Moore's Law, but it's still a power law. It says that network speeds double about every 2 years, versus 18 months for Moore's Law. The takeaway, I think, is that U.S. internet speed is keeping pace with that law, it is increasing in speed pretty quickly, but there are still concerns that it may not be fast enough, it's still not the fastest in the world when you take an average. Now, there's a variety of reasons for that. One is that we're a very big country, and a diverse country with regard to infrastructure. We don't have any data on that locally right now, but it's something that I had planned to get for the annual report. You can dig into the speedtest.net site, and it will show you breakdowns of all the speed tests from the various providers for your local area. It's pretty cool stuff, actually. It's a really, really, a lot of information can be condensed into a small, into a readable report that way; but in general, the trend is that internet speeds are increasing, and that's driven by a lot of things. One is technology, the various, so cable technology, DOCSIS 3.1 modems were finally certified in the last month, which means that Comcast will begin rolling out its multi-gigabit services over cable plant, that will also mean that cable will kind of come to par with fiber for a little while as, over the next probably 5 years, you'll be able to get the same speeds over the 2 technologies. It's still likely that cable will run out of capacity at some point, but it's a marketing decision about what services 01 21 16 Page 30 of 36  they offer at what prices at this point. There continue to be some issues with DSL and satellite internet with regard to whether they are actually meeting the needs of the people. I don't think that that quite applies to U-verse's version of DSL, which is a fairly short-range thing, and it's quite fast, but the DSL that's not directly within a few hundred feet of your nearest box, I think, is still considered not to be quite meeting the needs of people with regard to internet speeds. Lastly, New York City has a new wireless network, free wireless network, for a variety of public areas. I don't know if it's the entire street map, but they're also, over the next 2 or 3 years, going to be rolling that out to all of the metro. The speed tests that people have been doing are pretty impressive. If you have the right hardware and you're in the right location, you can see 4 or 500 megabits over the wireless network there that is, again, free for everyone to use in New York. It'd be kind of cool to see that kind of thing here. That kind of dovetails with the next issue, which is about digital divide and the trends in internet uptake. Again, this is all internet-focused; the next one talks about video. The basic conclusion is that we've reached a point where everybody that wants internet has access to it, and it's now an issue of price. The barriers to entry are no longer whether people want it or whether they have access to it, but whether they can afford it, and a variety of studies found that, in addition, there were some local developments in that regard. There was an editorial in the News- Gazette about a trend for people to pick up smartphone internet instead of land- line internet, and while the editorial didn't address it, that trend is also driven by price. It's driven by the fact that you already have a smartphone that's already got internet. You have that for other reasons, and adding the extra cost of a land-line, which, if it's going to be fast, is still fairly expensive. That's probably the reason driving people's switching away from land-lines to smartphone internet. The other is that the mayors signed a letter requesting for the FCC to improve the lifeline service, which is a low-income subsidy for telecommunications, and they asked the FCC to add broadband to that. I thought I'd seen some FCC movement on that topic, actually, prior to the mayors' letter, but I couldn't find it when I looked for it, so I'll continue to look into that a little bit. The last one is that the market for video is rapidly changing. As I think we all know, last year you basically had 4 choices for TV. You had Comcast, you had AT&T, you had DISH, and you had DirecTV. In our community now, we've added ITV3. In addition, there is a whole slew of developing options, depending on how you want to consume it for over-the-top internet, which is internet ... Sorry, over-the-top video, which is video you get over the internet, and I'll just name a couple of them. There's things like Hulu and Netflix if you want on-demand, and Apple ... Sorry, Amazon Prime video, and there's also an Apple TV option if you want on demand; so that's where you use your remote to select the particular program you want to watch at any given time, and it's not, you're not tied to watching a given show at a given time. It doesn't "come on" at a given time, in the sense that traditional cable 01 21 16 Page 31 of 36  channels do. There are 2 over-the-top options that allow you to get really fairly traditional TV over the internet, and one of those is called Sling TV. It's from Dish Networks, and it's a pretty cool product, actually. I've tried it out, and it's a very nice blending of "what show is on right now," but also you can kind of go back in time, on some channels it's a day, on some channels you can only go back in, or you can go back in time as far as a week, and watch all the shows that are on there. The other is called, I think it's PlayStation Vue, but I may have that last part wrong. It is a Sony product, and it does have the PlayStation in the name, and it's a TV product. It's focused on New York and Chicago right now. I'd believe you can sign up if you're in Champaign, but I haven't actually tried that. It has more channels, it has local channels. Sling TV is missing the local channels; but the PlayStation product has more channels and it has local channels, but it's $50 a month instead of $20 a month for Sling TV, and it has some limitations on the devices that you can use it with. They're mostly Sony devices. That's a lot of technical detail, but the takeaway is that, as a consumer, you have some pretty cool options now for watching TV not through a traditional TV provider, and the expectation is that those options will explode over the next few years, and it'll be hopefully not quite a free-for-all, hopefully more like a buyer's market that's what it will be, I think, what we're hoping will develop. That was the summary of what I found on the net over the last few months. Dale Sinder: Thanks, Peter. Are there other- Sanford Hess: Can I comment on ... Dale Sinder: Yeah. Sanford Hess: ... Peter's comments, and then remind everybody of one thing? The comment, first of all, is thank you. That's exactly the kind of stuff that I was hoping would come out from some of our stuff; and I think where this is germane to Council, for example, is not just that this is good stuff for the consumer, but there's also a fiscal impact for the cities due to the [loss 01:18:09] of the franchise fees with the ... Over-the-top, you called them? Peter Folk: Yeah. Sanford Hess: Internet-based, it was going to reduce the number of people doing cable subscriptions, and that has a fiscal impact; so those are the kind of things that I very much would like us to carry to the councils to be aware of. The other note I'll make, though, is something related to this email. There was a concern that I just want to pass along. This email where Peter, for example, sent out this information, should not be used for discussions among the council members, because those would not be open in the sense of the Open Meeting Act, so we are using this as sort of a one- 01 21 16 Page 32 of 36  way distribution to put the information out, which would then be assembled into the packets and made available to the public also, and then to be discussed at the meetings in an open session; so just a reminder not to get into a back-and-forth dialogue through the email, please. Male: Hope they're speeding [sec 01:19:11]. Dale Sinder: Yeah. Question, Peter, you mentioned that the FCC had been ruling internet in a telecommunications area, what is cellular service? Is that telecommunications or not? Peter Folk: Cellular service is a telecommunication service. Dale Sinder: It is [itself 01:19:35] a telecommunication service ... Peter Folk: Yeah, that's interesting that we've never even really touched on that in the past. Dale Sinder: Yeah. In that case, I have just a little bit of information that I stumbled upon in the last week or so. I did notice an item in the news about "AT&T has been revamping their cellular services," and that they are, if I recall correctly, "no longer offering their subsidized phone contract for service for a period of time," but rather going with a leasing or rental of phone bundled in with your bill as basically a less of a commitment sort of thing. Is that something that is in your area, Chris? Chris Warwick: Is that the Next plan? Dale Sinder: Yes, yes. Chris Warwick: [crosstalk 01:20:32] Dale Sinder: It is, it was called Next, yes. Chris Warwick: Because if it was Next it is one of the last carrier [services 01:20:35]. Dale Sinder: Yeah. Chris Warwick: It's now a Next plan where you can either purchase it outright, or you can ... The Next plan is what it's called. Dale Sinder: Yeah, and then the other item I stumbled on, actually assisting someone in buying a GoPhone earlier this week, is that AT&T used to offer a $10 per month for 100 minutes option with no commitment. You could buy a phone for as little as $19 plus $10 for a SIM card. That price has now gone up to $25 per month, and for 100 minutes, so quite a price jump there. I don't know what the implications are for other elements of packaging. Peter Folk: My understanding is that there's a variety of options ... "Go" is a brand, right? 01 21 16 Page 33 of 36  GoPhone is a brand? Dale Sinder: I think it's more on the lines of a service plan, or a non-service plan, yeah. Chris Warwick: [crosstalk 01:21:43]. Peter Folk: Okay, but it's not a generic term. Dale Sinder: No, it is specific to AT&T. Peter Folk: There are a variety of ... Dale Sinder: TracFone, I think, is another such example. Peter Folk: Right, no-commitment services. Dale Sinder: Yes. Peter Folk: I think that those have been multiplying over the last few years based on something that's called MVNO, where you can create a virtual network over some other company's actual infrastructure; and so I know Walmart has one of those, and I think there's a few others. I would suggest that, if you ran into pricing problems with one of them, there might be other options out there that are lower cost, but they also might come with some negative performance. Each network has its own coverage maps, and they're never quite as simple or ubiquitous as you'd want them to be, so actually there's another topic related to that, that I maybe could ask Sanford to talk about, your crazy, what you've been trying at? Dale Sinder: Oh, yes. Sanford Hess: Now you want me to talk about it? Peter Folk: Sure, or we could do it, if you wanted ... I mean, if you want to have something off the cuff, then that's great, or we could talk about it later. Sanford Hess: No, that's fine, and I think it's good, going back to the theme of, the consumer has options; so I have a Google Phone, which is directly from Google and rides on top of the carrier signals from the other carriers, and is priced at a, to me, very reasonable flat rate of $30 a month, and then taxes on top; and data plans are $10 a month for 1 gig of data, and if you want 2 gigs, that's $20 a month, and on top of that, etc.; and so far, I can say that, for me, from a personal perspective, it's worked out very well. One interesting thing about this, going back to the internet, is that the Google Phone wants to do Wi-Fi as opposed to ... It prefers to carry your conversations over the internet as opposed to through a cell signal, so being somebody who works in the basement of a very thick building, I actually get much better call quality going through a Wi-Fi signal than I did when I was dependent upon the carriers to carry my cell signal. Lots of options, lots of features, different ones for 01 21 16 Page 34 of 36  different people, makes sense. Peter Folk: Interesting. There's one thing that we didn't address in here that we had talked about in our previous meeting, which was coming up with kind of a short presentations that might be relevant to the consumer, or having dedicated meetings for a kind of dog-and-pony show, or something of that sort. That's, I think, the term that we talked about; or maybe we didn't talk about that in a meeting, maybe we talked about that just between Dale and myself. Dale Sinder: The two of us ... Yeah, it was, you and I and Sanford, I think, talked about that. Peter Folk: Okay, which was not a violation of the Open Meetings Act, I just want to be totally clear here. We were within the bounds. I think those would be valuable and interesting, but I don't really know how to organize them, so maybe for our next meeting, we can come up with a plan for that ... Dale Sinder: Yeah. Peter Folk: ... or in the interim, people can suggest things that might be presented. Dale Sinder: I think the topics are the biggest need, and then we can worry about the organization, after we have a topic. Peter Folk: Okay; so maybe I'll suggest, while we're in open meeting, that the commissioners might send topics that they'd like to see, that they think consumers might ... Giraldo Rosales: That was [fine 01:25:47]. Peter Folk: All right, see you. If the commissioners could suggest topics that they think the consumer might be interested in seeing demos of, and then we can decide which ones we can handle and which ones we can't. Dale Sinder: I think the various over-the-top services might be a good starting place. Peter Folk: Okay. Dale Sinder: Any other commissioners' comments? Chris Lukeman: Yeah, I'll do one. The new season, students just got back to campus on this past weekend, and it sounds like Student News is going to start its live programming a little early this year or the semester, and the week of February 7th, starting on Tuesdays and Thursday nights at 5:30, you can check out the Student News, live produced every week except for spring break until finals. Dale Sinder: Great. Chris Foster: I got a comment as well. Just of note at PCTV, we are actually currently only 01 21 16 Page 35 of 36  running satellite programming, our hard drive playback system bit the dust. We've already basically put in our request to get the new equipment. It's been picked out, and we're just waiting for the purchase to go through, so, [what 01:27:15] time we get that, we'll probably be off the air for a period of time to get back up and going, so that we can play our local programming again. Currently, we're just able to switch from satellite to satellite. Peter Folk: Question about Parkland stuff. Do you guys cover the musicals that you have in performance there? Chris Foster: We do cover some of the concerts, the orchestra-type concerts. They've got a lot of the music, they have copyright agreements with a lot of music so that we're able to do that, but with the plays and stuff, the copyright doesn't allow us to broadcast, rebroadcast them on to the channel; so we do do some of the concerts that the orchestra and jazz bands and stuff do, but unfortunately we're not able to do the plays because of copyright. Peter Folk: Okay. Interesting. Dale Sinder: Thank you. Our next scheduled meeting is April 21, 2016, at 3:30pm here in the Urbana City Council Chambers. Unless there are other items from the Commissioners ... Hearing none, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Male: Thank you. How did we do? If you rate this transcript 3 or below, this agent will not work on your future orders 01 21 16 Page 36 of 36