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electronic village of abingdon "91st Day" Subcommittee
MINUTES
29 October 1997 12:00 Noon
The scheduled meeting of the Electronic Village of Abingdon "91st Day" Subcommittee held in the Johnston Memorial Hospital Cafeteria was opened by Dr. F. H. Moore. There were ten members present. These included:
The minutes of the 24 September 1997 meeting were approved as presented.
The Phase 3 fiber project was the first agenda item. David Taverner reported that the fibers were all in place and that some minor work remained to be done, but that we were ready to take requests for connections to the system.
Difficulty with placing orders for connections was discussed next. Randy Boyd complained that answers to questions about when connection could be made were nebulous. A better way of accomplishing this was discussed. Randy Robertson suggested that we set target dates for Sprint's subcontractor to make connections and that anyone requesting a connection by this time could be connected.
Making the public aware of the availability of service was discussed also, with several ideas being offered as to methods of making those within the service areas aware of this opportunity. Randy Boyd offered to assist in this regard as he deals with clients. Pat Shrader suggested that direct mail could work in this defined target area. Ray Millsap suggested presentations to Rotary and other civic clubs as a possibility. Randy Boyd, Randy Robertson, Jay Cox and Al Bradley are to work on publicizing the availability of EVA services. David Taverner demonstrated the areas where connections are immediately possible. Requests for connections outside of the immediate service area take additional time and expense to arrange with the various utility services. David also reviewed the steps that we go through to make a connection. Following this discussion, it was decided to arrange specific dates in advance for connections, and any valid connection application from any structure within the service area could be made a t the same time. David Taverner is to advise us of the date(s) for such connections.
A current list of 26 participants in the Town network from Jay Cox was reviewed. Jay requested review of the pricing procedure for networks. The present method of charging based on IP addresses has been shown to be inadequate. It is now possible to set up a router on an individual connection and attach multiple computers with only one IP address. Several locations where this was happening were discussed. After some discussion, Jay Cox agreed to look at several alternate means of handling multiple computer pricing.
Jay also noted that he and Jean Luker had discussed the EVA Mission Statement devised and adopted on 9 February 1996 by the EVA Committee. They felt that this Mission Statement should be revised after over a year of actual operations experience to determine if the Mission Statement was still current or needed revision. After some discussion, it was decided to hold this project until January 1998.
Jean Luker had sent along her recommendation for setting up an interactive link to a children's literature site: The group gave its unanimous approval to the link and left this up to Jean Luker and Coni Patrick to proceed.
Dr. Moore recounted his discussions with various Virginia Municipal League and Virginia Association of Counties Committees in regards to proposed legislation and that at Mr. Boucher's recommendation, they had agreed to leave the matter alone for the time being.
The next meeting of the EVA 91st Day Subcommittee was set for 12:00 noon on 26 November 1997 at the Johnston Memorial Hospital Cafeteria meeting room.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned.
Respectfully Submitted,
Albert C. Bradley, Secretary |