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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%">Hi Davisites </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%">Last Wed was the
final Broadband Advisory Task Force meeting. The BATF unanimously
approved its final product, a 3 page letter, which unequivocally
states a Fiber Based Community Broadband network is feasible,
should
be further analyzed by technical and financial professionals in
coordination with city engineering staff, and urges timely action.
Although there is some minor word smithing that will change a
couple
of small details, the Final was approved from a Draft copy which
may
be found here. </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://documents.cityofdavis.org/Media/Default/Documents/PDF/CityCouncil/Broadband-Advisory-Task-Force/Agendas/20190522/06A-BATF-Recomendation-to-Council-Draft.pdf">http://documents.cityofdavis.org/Media/Default/Documents/PDF/CityCouncil/Broadband-Advisory-Task-Force/Agendas/20190522/06A-BATF-Recomendation-to-Council-Draft.pdf</a></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%">This process went
on
3 full years and was entering its 4<sup>th</sup>. It produced an
excellent Feasibility Study Report, evaluated information, talked
to
vendors, and generated and reviewed the results of a phone survey
and
online poll in its final analysis. </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%">Personally, I’m
truly thankful these community leaders took their time to evaluate
and follow this process of evaluating feasibility to this
conclusion,
and now it is time for DavisGIG to be more active again with both
the
public and the Council to help move it onward. </p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>This report will be
presented by the Task Force Chair, hello Chris, at the 6/4 CC
meeting, so keep your eye on the Agenda. I’m thinking that they
will evaluate, at that time or soon after, if they want to
reconstitute some sort of group to carry out carrying out
technical
and financial analysis details the BATF memo recommends, or end
the
effort and bring in Big Fiber Provider Grande/Wave/RCN, aka
Astound, owned by
private equity firm TPG Capital. This will setup another monopoly
control situation over physical Internet infrastructure, like
Comcast’s control of Coax, and ATT’s control of Copper. </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%">So we need to put
some effort into encouraging Council to do the right thing here,
which is continue the effort for a phased build approach to a
city-owned, community-operated open access fiber ring or more. </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%">In support of that,
we have generated a “talking points” type document which refers
to benefits identified by the Feasibility Study and addresses
concerns citizens raised in the DavisGIG broadband poll. Please
comment if you think anything needs tweaking, it may be found
here.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%"><a
href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G8WTYwwkxZFFKSoOZn0Bjpz0Pw2VRQD_WR8CJGEVjcY/edit?usp=sharing">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G8WTYwwkxZFFKSoOZn0Bjpz0Pw2VRQD_WR8CJGEVjcY/edit?usp=sharing</a></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%"> We hope you can
use
this to educate your neighbors and colleagues as to why this will
make everyone's quality of life better.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%">We need an Op Ed
ASAP for the papers, and to finish out a light business plan for
the
first phase; the build out of backbone ring and sub rings, aka the
“COFOR” thanks DW! This we plan to submit to City Staff for
inclusion in documents sent to CC on this issue, as DavisGIG’s
recommendation, so we have a week on that. I’ll put links to those
in subsequent emails. I’m hoping some of you all can collaborate
on this through Google Docs. </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%">Should we also get
a
statement together asking Council to follow the advice of the BATF
memo that we can ask people to endorse or sign on to that can be
presented to CC during public comment or in support of the item? </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%">I’ll send a notice
out to our announce list about this, as well as social media,
asking
people to submit public comment or just endorse our statement. It
would also be spectacular to have lots of people come to this CC
meeting to give comment at the start of the 6/4 CC Session. </p>
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</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%">Any other ideas for
how to keep this going please chime in. </p>
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</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%">Thanks ALL </p>
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</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%">RAN</p>
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