Otis Technology Committee
Minutes for Meeting of
June 15, 2009
Meeting called to order at 6:00 pm.
Present: Larry Gould, Howard Levin, Robert Rocke, Ernie Lowell, George Mabee
Minutes from last meeting were unanimously approved and accepted.
Massachusetts Broadband Institute will have a public meeting on June 19th at Berkshire South on the broadband initiative for the state of Massachusetts, and all are welcome to attend. In a perfect world, it would take 800 Million dollars to do everything MBI would like to do, but getting that kind of finding is unlikely. The requirement is to furnish for every home in Berkshire County. Southern Berkshire Technology Committee has recommended MBI begin with the town of Mount Washington – this will be presented to MBI as soon as possible. Everyone agrees that without a broadband backbone, the economy in Western Massachusetts is dead. The governor wants to install a technology that is scalable and future-proof, but everyone here agreed no technology is future-proof.
Housatonic Railroad owns the rail lines from Vermont to Connecticut and wants to upgrade the rail system (they have applied for a grant for this), so their thought is to lay the cable for the broadband backbone along the rail paths and combine both projects, getting more bang from both of the grant monies. This will also be presented to MBI in the near future.
Larry Gould introduced George Mabee to the group as George is interested in becoming a new member. New members are always welcome to our committee.
Southern Berkshire Technology Committee is requesting each person’s story as to how they can use improved broadband to help themselves. This will aid in their application for grant monies. It was suggested the Postmaster be approached for displaying flyers to the public.
Verizon’s new laptops with air cards built into them – they work good if you have good reception for wireless. They are a 5G size for around $400.00, limited only by the bandwidth available, and charge around $40.00 per month for access. Wireless cellular connections are not broadband, but they are a lot faster that dial-up.
Meeting adjourned at 6:52 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Lisa D’Orazio, recording secretary
(taped meeting as I was unavailable to attend)
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