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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016/10/26 - ADMIN - Minutes - Community Technology Advisory Commission - RegularUNOFFICIAL MINUTES ST. LOUIS PARK TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION MEETING OF OCTOBER 26, 2016 ST. LOUIS PARK COUNCIL CHAMBERS MEMBERS PRESENT: Maren Anderson, Bruce Browning, Cindy Hoffman and Rolf Peterson present at Roll Call. David Dyer arrived at 7:05 p.m. and Abe Levine at 7:08 p.m. MEMBERS ABSENT: None STAFF PRESENT: Jacqueline Larson, Communications and Marketing Manager, Reg Dunlap, Civic TV Coordinator, and John McHugh, Community TV Coordinator OTHERS PRESENT: Karly Werner, Comcast Senior Manager Government Affairs 1. Call to Order Chair Peterson called the meeting to order at 7:02 PM. 2. Roll Call Present at roll call were Commissioners Anderson, Browning, and Peterson, joined by Commissioner Dyer at 7:05 p.m. and Commissioner Levine at 7:08 p.m. 3. Approval of Minutes for May 11, 2016 A. Telecommunications Commission minutes: July 27, 2016 Chair Peterson had a correction to the minutes, changing single strand to single mode or multimode fiber. It was moved by Commissioner Browning, seconded by Commissioner Hoffman, to approve the minutes as amended. The motion passed 4-0. B. Telecommunications Commission minutes: May 11, 2016 It was moved by Commissioner Anderson, seconded by Commissioner Browning, to approve the minutes as presented. The motion passed 4-0. 4. Adoption of Agenda It was moved by Commissioner Anderson, seconded by Commissioner Browning, to approve the agenda as presented. The motion passed 4-0. 5. Public Comment – None 6. Reports & Discussion A. Review staff report on CenturyLink second & third quarter Mr. Dunlap said the purpose of the meeting was franchise compliance. CenturyLink now reaches 28,000 living units in St. Louis Park, and 10,000 of them can receive Prism TV. They have about 600 customers in St. Louis Park and paid $2,770 in franchise fees in the second quarter. They provided some customer service statistics, including that they answered 98% of their calls within 30 seconds. ParkTV channels debuted on CenturyLink’s system in May, and last week channels 14, 16 and 17 were switched over to HD. Chair Peterson said he’s attended three of these meetings now and he finds it fascinating to watch the growth. He said he appreciates their candor. B. Begin discussion of franchise fee review for Comcast: 2014-2016 Mr. Dunlap said the memo in the packet summarized the cost and amount recovered in the most recent franchise fee audits. The city has partnered with others to share the cost, which is expected to be $12,000 to $17,000. The city must give Comcast notice by the end of the year to audit from 2014 to 2016. Chair Peterson asked if there was a possibility to partner with others on this? Commissioner Browning said that was worth looking at, considering the amounts recovered, and the cost of the audits. Commissioner Dyer asked why the cost of the 2005 – 2008 audit was $12,000, with partners, yet the 2011-2013 audit cost $8,500? Mr. Dunlap said the Request for Proposals can vary in the amount of detail, and that probably there were partners for the 2011-2013 audit. Chair Peterson asked about the process for selecting a firm to do the audit? Mr. Dunlap said that an RFP would be sent to a number of firms that specialize in these audits, and that a member of the Commission and the City Finance Controller typically assist in selecting the best proposal. Commissioner Levine asked if there a cost benefit to doing the audit, since sometimes the recovery is less than the expense? Mr. Dunlap said that is the question for this Commission. Commissioner Browning said it’s a fair question. Mr. McHugh said, not all City enforcement actions offer a return on investment. Chair Peterson said he struggles with that each time, and that it doesn’t mean there couldn’t be a gap, like in the past, and then down the road request another one. Commissioner Levine said if there’s not an indication we’re not receiving all the money we’re due, then why bother? It’s not just the expense of the audit, it’s the staff time to do the RFP, and the opportunity cost to do other things. If we’re coming out ahead I would say OK, but we’re not. Commissioner Anderson asked if the money received from an audit went into the same bucket or fund that the audit was paid from? Mr. Dunlap said the franchise fees from Comcast and CenturyLink go into the Cable TV fund. Any fees recovered from the audit would go into that fund, and the expenses would be paid from that fund. Commissioner Levine said he had a negotiating idea. Since Comcast doesn’t want to undergo an audit any more than the City wants to do one. How about negotiating that this is the number you owe us, and move on? Chair Peterson said that this is part of doing business, and a due diligence of making sure they abide by the franchise. We should have it in the budget to do an audit each time whether we do it or not. I lean toward doing it because it is an enforcement issue. That said, I’m not in the habit of throwing away money, either. Commissioner Levine said that we could spend the time on the audit, or, looking at the past results, could propose $4,000 and be done with it. It might be a low enough figure that they could consider it noise, and it would be enough that it would be a win for us because we don’t have to do the audit. Mr. Dunlap said that he hadn’t considered that approach before, and would check with the City Attorney to see if that was appropriate. Commissioner Anderson said that we’d received $1.8 million from Comcast from 2011 to 2013, which rounds off to $600,000 per year. $8,000 divided by $600,000 is 1.4%, so if we’re going to lose money on the audit, that money is better off in the ParkTV fund. I understand the due diligence, but for 1.4%, I’m not as concerned. Chair Peterson said we aren’t deciding about whether to ever do an audit again, but about whether to do 2014. We could pick up at 2015, 2016 and 2017 next year. Commissioner Browning made a motion that staff should contact other cities to find out if they could partner in an audit to cut costs, and find out if the City Attorney would approve of a negotiated settlement without an audit. It was seconded by Commissioner Levine, and passed 6-0. C. Comcast complaint review & possible action Commissioner Peterson said he looked it over and was appalled by the number of complaints, but then realized we hadn’t had a meeting since May. Mr. Dunlap said that every complaint is unique, but they can be categorized. This year staff has received 89 complaints in 76 calls, as compared to 2014 when there were 97 calls, but 150 complaints, because many customers had several complaints per call. So that’s a good sign. He said there were 28 complaints in June and July about the price increase, which is more than usual. In 2014 there were 13 price complaints. Mr. McHugh asked the Comcast representative if they still have customer service reps in Mexico and the Philippines, as one customer complained? Karly Werner, Comcast Senior Manager Government Affairs, said yes. Ms. Werner said that Comcast has opened 3 more customer service centers in the west region in the last year to bring back customer service from some of the third party vendors they’d been using in the Philippines and Mexico. One of the new centers is in St. Paul. Comcast still uses some third party vendors to cover certain hours. Commissioner Browning asked if Comcast had continued to have specialized agents, for example, for billing? Ms. Werner said that they continue to work on that because the business has gotten so complicated. She said there are positive trends in the City’s log that what they’re focusing on is working. For example, telephone customer service had 26 complaints in 2014, but in 2016 so far there are 11. In technical service and outages, there were 29 in 2014 and only 9 this year. Commissioner Hoffman said that Comcast modems update every night at 2 a.m., and asked if there was a web link at Xfinity.com so customers who have bought their own modems can check to see if there firmware is up to date? CenturyLink now has that available. Ms. Werner said that the My Account app at Xfinity.com could address that and other features so customers don’t have to call customer service. Commissioner Hoffman said that she had searched in admin features and couldn’t find how to change the SSID, for example. Ms. Werner said she’d check with tech staff. Commissioner Dyer said that Comcast is attempting to hide fees so it appears the packages are a lower price, giving the examples of the broadcast and sports fees. He recently talked to a rep about lowering his bill and was told about a much lower package price, but by the time he got the bill, it was only $15 cheaper because of the extra fees. He said customers are frustrated by the extra fees that they aren’t anticipating. Ms. Werner said the programming costs have doubled in the last 7 or 8 years, and that is the driver of those fees. Mr. McHugh referred to the May letter from Comcast that said older boxes could lose HD channels. Would customers lose any SD channels? Ms. Werner said no. A handful of customers still have the older boxes that that don’t receive MPEG 4 encoded channels, but they have made it as easy as possible to trade for the new equipment at no cost. Commissioner Levine asked if Comcast is looking to sunset standard definition in the next few years? Ms. Werner said it’s not clear when standard definition will phase out, or if it will. There is still a significant number of customers that subscribe to SD only. Mr. McHugh asked about the Xfinity TV app, and if that means a customer could sign in with their account information and watch TV on the Wi-Fi at City Hall, for example. Ms. Werner said the live TV is only available in your home network, but on demand is available outside the home. Mr. McHugh asked how many Internet Essentials customers were in Minnesota, out of the 600,000 nation-wide? Ms. Werner said she’d have to check, and described the program for the new commissioners. Commissioner Browning asked about 1-gig service, and if it’s available everywhere? Ms. Werner said the DOCSIS 3.1 service will allow 1 gig service, and it’s slowly rolling out and being tested, but not sure when it will be available in Minnesota. Commissioner Levine asked how DirecTV Now’s over the top service for $35 fit in to Comcast’s competitive posture? Ms. Werner said it is a highly competitive market with many choices. We recognize the need for a skinny package. Chair Peterson asked Commissioners what direction they’d like to go on the Comcast complaint review options listed on the presentation. Commissioner Hoffman asked about the customer service ordinance listed as an option. Mr. Dunlap said that Brian Grogan has said at MACTA conferences that franchise authorities can establish these, but that he’d like to survey existing ordinances in other communities to assure it could be an enforceable agreement. Commissioner Levine asked if there would be penalties in the ordinance, and if so, if there were monetary damages, would that impact the prices for customers? He said we need to be thoughtful about that to avoid increases on the bill. He suggested service level agreements in the next franchise, that they are common to the contracts he signs. Chair Peterson said he’d like to continue to monitor complaints quarterly, and to survey to see if other communities have customer service ordinances more stringent than the FCC customer service standards. Commissioners Peterson and Anderson asked for more information about option 2, request call center records from Comcast. Ms. Werner said Comcast has records that prove they meet FCC customer service standards for the metro area, but doesn’t specifically tally them for St. Louis Park. Standards include call answer times, appointment windows for service calls and fixing outages. We provide this information to a handful of franchise authorities but the trend with more competition is to move away from this kind of reporting. Commissioner Anderson said that statistics for the east metro or metro-wide don’t affect us, that she is interested in the complaints logged by staff. Commissioner Peterson agreed. D. Update from Comcast on channel guide information available to customers with digital adapters, and using ParkTV branding Ms. Werner said this was an error that happened a while back, that it can be corrected and will follow up, and apologized for not fixing this sooner. E. Conflict of interest reminder Mr. Dunlap said the Council wanted to remind all Commissioner’s about these guidelines. F. Control room upgrade to HD servers & Carousels Mr. Dunlap offered to show the new equipment in the control room after the meeting, and said Commissioners Browning and Peterson have already had the tour. ParkTV now has 3 HD channels showing on CenturyLink, and the new servers play more file types which saves staff preparation time. 7. Communications from the Chair, Commissioners and City staff Chair Peterson welcomed new Commissioners David Dyer and Abe Levine. Commissioner Browning found in the Comcast handout that gigabit speeds are available nationwide. Mr. McHugh passed out a programming report for Community TV, and said we’ve recorded 83 shows so far this year. 8. Adjournment Commissioner Browning made a motion, Commission Anderson seconded to adjourn at 8:17 p.m. The motion passed 6-0. Respectfully submitted by: Reg Dunlap Civic TV Coordinator