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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013/05/22 - ADMIN - Minutes - Community Technology Advisory Commission - RegularOFFICIAL MINUTES ST. LOUIS PARK TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION MEETING OF May 22, 2013 ST. LOUIS PARK COUNCIL CHAMBERS MEMBERS PRESENT: Bruce Browning, Rick Dworsky, Dale Hartman, Cindy Hoffman, Toby Keeler, Rolf Peterson, and Bill Theobald MEMBERS ABSENT: None STAFF PRESENT: Reg Dunlap, Civic TV Coordinator; John McHugh, Community TV Coordinator OTHERS PRESENT: Karly Werner, Comcast 1. Call to Order Chair Theobald called the meeting to order at 7:02 PM. 2. Roll Call Present at roll call were Commissioners Browning, Dworsky, Hartman, Hoffman, Keeler, Peterson and Theobald. 3. Approval of Minutes for February 27, 2013 It was moved by Commissioner Browning, seconded by Commissioner Keeler, to approve the minutes of February 27, 2013, without changes. The motion passed 7-0. 4. Adoption of Agenda It was moved by Commissioner Browning, seconded by Commissioner Peterson, to approve the agenda. The motion passed 7-0. 5. Public Comment Phillip Hogland, 2716 Vernon Av. S, expressed concern over problems he had with his cable service the past week when they were switching channels from analog to digital last Tuesday. He said it was a frustrating experience that required 8 hours of his time to resolve. All of the local channels, 2-13, plus 20, and some others, were displaying an “interruption in service” message. His neighbor had the exact same problem. However, what should have happened before the change is that the filters on the main line on the pole should have been removed. The filters were not removed, which caused the system to stop working, according to the Comcast technician who resolved the problem. Mr. Hogland said that he wanted to mention this in case others were having the same problem; look for a 2 inch by ½ inch cylinder on the cable line, and call Comcast to see if it should be removed. Mr. Dunlap noted Mr. Hogland was complaint #20 on the log. He spoke with escalation staff who said that changing the frequencies that carry local channels caused the problem. He would try to find out what happened, and reported that he received several calls about missing channels on DTA’s last week. Commissioner Browning said he’d be curious to talk to Comcast technical staff to find out if those filters were supposed to be removed and someone just forgot, since it obvious had an impact. Commissioner Hoffman asked how long this went on, was it for a couple of days? Mr. Hogland said he noticed it Wednesday, and it was out until Saturday afternoon. In the meantime, Mr. Hogland followed the directions posted on the web site, called tech support and spoke with them for two hours, then worked with a tech on the chat line for an hour or so, at which point he was told to bring the adapter in to a service center. He took the DTA to the cable store Friday noon, came back home with a new adapter and set that up, then went back on the chat line for another two hours because it didn’t fix the problem. On Saturday morning, he went on the chat line again for an hour, and they told him it was his TV, or inside wiring, and they wanted him to commit to pay for a Comcast service call. Instead, Mr. Hogland went shopping for an over the air antenna, and when he returned a Comcast tech was in the alley to assist the neighbor. Mr. Hogland told him about the problem, and the tech said he’d just fixed that by removing the filter, which he noticed while servicing the neighbor’s line. Commissioner Peterson asked if Comcast tech support could communicate with the DTA’s, and Mr. Hogland said yet. Commissioner Peterson said he was surprised that the intelligent device used by tech support couldn’t find the problem. Mr. Hogland said he called Comcast again to request a credit, and was granted a credit of $1.65. Commissioner Browning asked if the chat line was staff by technical people, or customer service reps? Mr. Hogland said he thought the chat line was more effective than spending the time on the telephone, and he gets to have a transcript of the conversation. He said the level of service was low, by his expectations. Mr. McHugh said that he recommended that Mr. Hogland give Comcast one last phone call to upgrade the credit to the $20 mentioned in the Comcast customer service guaranty. 6. Action Items A. Franchise fee audit partnership Mr. Dunlap provided a memo summarizing potential audit partners which did not include information from Minneapolis or St. Paul. Chair Theobald asked if there was any information about when that would be available, like the next month or two? Mr. Dunlap said it could be several months while the cities and Comcast worked on a settlement, which would then be reported in public documents available to St. Louis Park. 7. Reports A. Complaints Mr. Dunlap noted there were a few more complaints than usual, but they dated back to February 5th. To the best of his knowledge, all of them have been resolved. Commissioner Browning asked how many complaints go to Escalation? Mr. Dunlap replied that all complaints that come to City staff are referred to Escalation. Commissioner Browning said that he noticed the common thread was having difficulty getting ahold of somebody who could understand the problems. He said we’ve seen this before, and we know they’re trying to improve what they’re doing and have more people in specific technical areas. It’s pretty much impossible to have any one person know everything about the system. He said it’s common to see in the complaint log a lack of knowledge by customer service, which is very frustrating for the customer. Mr. McHugh stated he received an additional complaint the previous day and customer service didn’t understand the issues and wanted to up-sell the customer. It turned out the customer had been mistakenly receiving on demand content at no charge until Comcast fixed the problem on their end. He said that Comcast doesn’t drop the ball that often, or our phone would never stop ringing. It’s upsetting to see these worst case scenarios but fortunately there aren’t a lot of them. Commissioner Browning said he’d toured Comcast’s Roseville head end and the technology was incredible. Commissioner Peterson said that the progression about losing channels one at a time, like AMC, may be stabilized with the all-digital network, which may be better, but doesn’t solve the customer service problems. Ms. Werner, Comcast, stated there had been a lot of changes and the major change was moving to an all-digital system. Some customers have issues with DTA’s and that takes awhile to work out. Also, they had been reconfiguring the customer call center, which would be more efficient with customer service agents who were deeper in substance, rather than a geographic area. Each call center will focus on one area; St. Paul will be billing, and the loyalty center will be in Minnetonka. Tech-specific issues will be in Portland and Houston. The customer gets a prompt when they call in, so they can be sent to the correct call center. It has been difficult during the transition because they are retraining and re-hiring and had to rely more heavily on third party partners, which is almost over. Comcast is moving some channels around on the spectrum to standardize somewhat more to allow more bandwidth for other advanced services. We’re trying to do it so customers don’t have to reset a box, but they may have to re-scan a QAM tuner to find the channels. That’s been happening over the last week so that could have contributed to the problems as well. Commissioner Browning asked if it was possible to talk with a technician at the call center, not a service rep? Ms. Werner replied agents will have deeper knowledge and be able to spot issues better or get referred to technician. Commissioner Hartman said he had an issue where he was stuck on channel 1 when he tried to enter a channel 111, for example, and it would take 10 or 15 seconds to get off that channel. So the customer service rep said it looks like you’ll have to speed up your pinkies. He was angry that customer service took it lightly even though it was a real problem, so he switched to Dish TV and was sick of Comcast staff. Ms. Werner said she was sorry the staff had handled it that way, and that they take all feedback to heart. Commissioner Browning said technology is more complicated than ever and tough on older customers to understand. Mr. McHugh asked about PEG channels moving. Ms. Werner stated they are moving the frequency that carries the local channels, but not going to change the where they are found in the channel line-up or from a Comcast box. Some QAM tuners will need to re-scan to find the signals. She would send an email with more details in case there were more calls. Mr. Dunlap said he could add information about the change to the cable TV information on the City web site. Ms. Werner said the positive side is that they have rolled out a lot of new services and high definition channels, as well as doubled internet speeds at no additional cost. B. Fiber network update Mr. Dunlap talked with Clint Pires to prepare the memo in the packet, who reported overall they were making a lot of progress on the recommendations of the Fiber Study. The City plans to complete many of the fiber links so there will be redundant fiber in case of fiber cuts. Mr. Pires reached out to Park Nicollet, and will build fiber to the library in the next year or two, which were also recommendations. The City wants to create revenue by leasing fiber but the link to the library will be a public service for Hennepin County to improve internet access at that site. C. Streaming video equipment upgrade Mr. Dunlap presented a demonstration of a two test live streams and compared them to the existing streams. Live streaming video dates to 2006 when the City purchased cards and installed them in computers and they’ve been working ever since. LOGIS has been handling the live streaming for the last two years at no additional cost for that service, they added it to the list of services provided to the City. That saves the City about $1,000 per month that Implex charged for their streaming service and video on demand hosting. Commissioner Browning asked about the hardware required? Mr. Dunlap said it is a Viewcast Niagara 9100 8A, meaning it can provide up to 8 live streams, and the City has 5 channels. The reason for the new hardware is to reach more mobile devices, which currently cannot receive the City’s channels. LOGIS is demoing the software to reach all Apple products like iPads and iPhones. But it won’t reach every mobile device, because some Android phones will have to download a flash video player, and not all of the phones can download that player. Commissioner Browning said that it was a substantial improvement. Mr. McHugh asked if all eight streams were the same quality? Mr. Dunlap said no. Mr. McHugh said that means it can do a lower bit rate stream, for folks who don’t have Comcast high speed service. Mr. Dunlap said the extra resolution wouldn’t be obvious for most programs from the Chambers seen on channel 17, but it would be noticeable on sports coverage. The unit has many other useful features, for example, it will send an email alert if one of the channels stops streaming. D. Comcast DTA activities Mr. Dunlap stated at the beginning of the year, Comcast changed how they do DTA’s for customers with service other than basic cable. For basic cable they get up to three for free. However if you have Digital Preferred or Economy, you get charged $1.99/each for a digital adapter outlet service. There was a little controversy about the charge, because it was sort of like saying that the DTA used to cost nothing, and now it cost $1.99. But the way Comcast classified the cost was as an additional outlet service. At least one city contacted their legal staff and put a stay on the charge and it’s not clear how that will turn out. The St. Louis Park City Attorney said he didn’t see enough basis to dispute the charge, so we didn’t pursue it like the other city has. Mr. Dunlap said he wanted to update the Commission in case there was any more news coverage about this. 8. Communication from the Chair Commissioner Keeler provided an update on MACTA. The Broadband Task Force has been placed under the Department of Commerce, which is probably a good thing. It has received funding and should become more active, and now has a representative from the City of St Paul, the first government agency representative on the Task Force. There is a Telecomm bill in committee that may see action next year, so that’s being watched closely by MACTA lobbyists. The MACTA annual conference is October 29th in Bloomington at the same site as last year. In 2014 it will be in May to make room for the NATOA conference September 29th-October 4th in St. Paul. He is the membership committee Co-Chair for MACTA. 9. Communications from City Staff Mr. McHugh handed out the programming roster for TV15, which is up to program #45. Mr. Dunlap noted that they would be doing remodeling in City Hall. The first floor and parking will change to the East side, where the new entrance will be located. Mr. Browning stated Comcast has a head end facility in Roseville and suggested the Commissioners tour that location and have a meeting there. He toured it with other TV engineers and found it interesting that it can be run entirely on battery power, in case of a power outage. He asked a Comcast technician how much streaming video from Netflix and You Tube taxes the system, and the answer was currently, about 40% of capacity. But after another 100 gigabit switch is added soon, traffic will drop to 9% of capacity. So they have capacity to grow, and to see them double our internet speeds was a nice thing. 10. Adjournment Commissioner Dworsky made a motion, Commission Browning seconded to adjourn at 8:06. The motion passed. Respectfully submitted by: Amy L. Stegora-Peterson Recording Secretary