##VIDEO ID:Rw1G16o5AGg## e e e e e e e for hi Gail hey Steve how are you I'm good how are you doing great today enjoying the PA so much I went on a really nice hike today try to I try to get out when it's good and and and then you know just uh work work in the morning and evening good good oh there's gem good hi Jim uh good evening Steve and Gail hello so I'm pretty sure Graham is coming he's probably just running late I actually ran into him uh on the road the other day good there he is [Music] hi gr you're all scratchy audio there hello Jim hey Gil talk a little bit more gr let's see if your audio is working all right oh did you not hear me you're static or bad yeah it sounds okay now though test one two three test one two three better although you're a little little bit are you using a phone no no not at all no it's it's okay the the quality isn't the best but it is that the same for um for Gail Jim are you also getting me crummy yeah it's just it just sounds kind of far away and a little echoey yeah that's weird it is the very same setup um and I never adjust I never intentionally adjust the microphone let me have a look at it's okay we we can hear yeah yeah it's it's it's it's yeah yeah hear you don't don't I will I will try and I will try and inate very clearly or say very little whichever suits you guys sounds good all right well welcome everybody to the October 16th meeting of the MLP board and Broadband committee um I am Gail huness MLP manager and facilitating the meeting this meeting is fully remote par participating remotely we have MLP board members Jim Hemingway Graham sepon and Steve Schmidt uh absent tonight is uh Broadband Committee Member Craig Martin um our first order of business is to approve the meeting minutes from September 18th as amended and submitted by Jim um so moved thank you second thank you um uh all in favor of approving the minutes hi I I great okay thank you um all right well let's move right into the Hut report nothing much from me uh I actually I've been so busy I didn't get inside the hut this month or so far but I will be going there this week just to make sure it's all buzzing away um yeah so and I didn't um I also didn't read the uh the was it 20 um trouble help tickets um I didn't I didn't look at them this month so um yes our our our maintenance and service calls the customer support was I think our lowest month yet 20 calls for the whole month ah very good so so so that was great um and uh generator maintenance for our generator in the town hall is likely to be done next week although we don't have a date yet from boric um he is also going to be programming that delay with the generator starting to try to mitigate the power surge issues um even more than we have with those great little surge protectors we got for the um the Mini Splits so um that's in the works um let's see so kind of like I I'll just give you a quick overview of the meeting I think it's gonna go pretty quick today we um well depending on how much we want to decide we want to talk about router stuff um but the the main thing could I just interject um Graham you indicated you were going to be getting up to the hot to do regular things and we got pic going sometime next week would it be good if they coordinated I I I'm hoping I've I've told Tim that I would like to be there when he for that very reason yeah yeah so okay good yeah yeah sorry Gail oh no worries um yeah so anyway just uh you know we're going to talk a little bit about routers I'm going to finally share our fiscal year 24 wrap-up only three months late um I apologize that it took so long there's a lot lot lot of back and forth with Gail Weiss this year just trying to um make it all make sense uh luckily our our numbers matched to the penny but I had a hell of a time trying to understand some of the report she was sending um in the way that she was presenting it with a cash shortfall we don't have a cash shortfall but it is the way that things get um get get reported uh that it it looks like that so thank big thanks to Steve for helping me work through that um and actually why don't we just jump jump right in and I'll and I'll share that I'll I'll share my screen so we can just look at it together so again this is this was this is fiscal year 24 which um uh ended in the end July um so I've highlighted some of the things that um oh is it by the way is it big enough for everyone okay here's a fun oh by the way here's a fun tip that I learned in Zoom so when you're watching somebody's um zoom and if they're screen isn't big enough you can do the pinch and and blow up just like you can on a cell phone like you yourself can control how big it is not on Microsoft oh no really you can't do it it doesn't work I'm oh oh I I guess you don't have you don't have a uh a touchcreen yeah I take it back I did it on my yeah no it it y okay it worked to some degree yeah okay great mine's working but you know it jumps a bit and it probably was better before way it was before Oh No No it's it's fine and then I was able to do it because I this is a touchscreen laptop so yeah um all right so anyway I've highlighted some of the things that are just important you know I'm gonna I'm not going to bury the lead I'm just going to go go right for the thing that the good news is that we have uh 7 ,7 uh 553 for our retained earnings so despite despite everything we're still ending this the year in cash positive and not by a little um so the biggest hit to the budget is right here we you know the $188,000 in poll transfers yeah all said done yeah yeah I mean we we were expecting about 150 you know and and of course everything goes over um that estimate was based on the small section that they did on lever road and it was the the whole like you know Wendell locks Pond Road section where it got hairy so uh it was ugly and um you know ate up a lot of our funds um uh Steve had a good idea to try to reach out to Senator Joe cumerford to see if there's any funds about this if you recall I reached out to Adam Saunders back in the fall asking hey is there any money for this got a hard no on that um but uh Joe cumerford wrote back same day and and personally she didn't one of her AIDS didn't write back and said we're going to look into this for you so I'm not going to put a whole lot of stock in it this is not going to make or break our budget but um it's good to know that that maybe um there'll be some some funds coming to us for this from from the state um my yeah my interest in it was Peak by reading in the Boston Globe about the earmarks that various state senators send out to places in their district and it's like well you know if this town can get something for it hey you know why don't we make a pitch I was concerned because Joe cumerford has not been our state senator for that long but then I saw that she is I think Deputy assistant um Deputy Vice chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee me she's like third in in in command on the Ways and Means Committee that she's got might have some Cloud after all so that was why I it sort of got me thinking suggested to Gail that we reach out to her so scale drafted a letter I edited it and tweaked it and sounds like it uh so yeah we'll see we'll we'll see what happens um um let's see other other important things so we spent about $ 39,800 or I'm sorry 39,000 uh $781 on regular maintenance not counting po moves so that is a um important to know because um it's it's right you know right in line with a a nice U margin in there for what we've allocated for a regular maintenance budget and Gail does that include like installation it includes everything so yeah so we had bumped our maintenance budget from 60,000 to 70,000 based on the winter storms of the previous winter but in fact we only spent we'll call it 40,000 for a round figure so um that's that's good it uh it is good but keep in mind last winter was mild yeah we had no we had no like big storms the year before was a doozy remember and and we and we uh uh used up almost all of it you know and and had insurance claims thrown in there so um you know I I feel I feel good about the 70,000 where it always good to have more than less yeah oh no I'm not recommending we reduce the maintenance budget at all I just thinking it's it's good to know that we're not we not running that higher figure every year yeah yeah yeah I you know I think we've we've we're running like um you know that 30 40,000 range is like a normal year and then we have that comfortable margin for the for the storm years um oh and don't forget also that our our deductible has gone up yeah yeah you know 15 15,000 now correct it's no longer 10 it's it's it's 15 so you know two big storms that's 30 grand that's that's almost half the half the maintenance budget right there but Gail I'm looking at your spreadsheet and it shows routine mainten 58,000 yes and that is because we threw some of those pole moves on regular maintenance but if you if you if you come down here and subtract this that's that's where we end up with the 39,7 181 okay so so 20,000 of that came from our regular routine maintenance and then I took the rest out of it out of our emergency Reserve because we were getting low okay um other important things um so our pole rental fees um were uh much more than uh what we bargained on because uh National Grid charged us 2023 and 2024 during the same our same fiscal year that should not happen this year but they were kind of doing a catch-up thing um totally within their right you know they they can uh charge us uh within the the span they can't send us the bills afterwards but it just landed twice in the same fiscal year um ass they're basing it on a calendar year yeah not our fiscal year so yeah okay um we were a bit short on insurance here too because the rates went up and we we never know exactly what it is we have accounted for this in our 25 budget for the rates to to go up again yeah I mean insurance rates we know that's gonna go up and go up I mean all you have to do is look at what's happening all around the country and one word Flor well yeah well everywhere yeah yeah so um could be Helen yeah um let's see so so anyway those are the those are the um kind of highlights of of the budget of um of what happened everything else we were we were pretty um spoton or had excess so all all that uh was good what else can I point out here um I think that's I think that's the the major T the you know the most important thing here is that we're we're ending fiscal year 24 with a little bit over $70,000 um so that is gives us that good cushion uh going forward and we'll hopefully be able to build that up again um you know it was just there's this onetime cost for all these National Grid pole moves that were um something that couldn't be taken care of by insurance or anything it just had to happen um any questions about about the uh budget yeah I no you've also got the auditor uh line highlighted there which I was curious any new any update on uh the uh town going after us for the additional audit funds uh no um okay good no no good news there fine yeah yeah so this is you know this is this is encumbered um our just a you know a quick reminder that we up until fiscal year 2025 we've been setting aside 850 but because it was never used we're like oh it's it's every other year and then we reduced it by half when really it should have been much more so um well we were just told recently we need more yeah yeah again it was because nobody told us that the what the real costs were um up until now so um anyway that'll that'll be on the on the uh uh Town's budget uh to pay for those audits we'll pay a portion of those and then going forward with our fiscal year 26 budget um we should uh increase this amount to reflect the actual cost and I assume we will um any other questions or comments can we attach that as a PDF or something to the minutes and maybe even if you could send us send send us a copy just so it's easier to look at absolutely absolutely so um it's uh just when when you get it um uh it is a dynamic worksheet don't mess with it yeah no no you're you you'll have a copy you can do whatever you want with it it's just you know you'll see formulas in here um I'll just give you a quick tour of how it works so this is like the main summary uh here here on the main that you can see item by item okay all of all of the uh expenses excellent and it it it it takes those and it um adds up the itemizer expenses into the right category here very very we don't have any uncleared expenses because the year is done um categories these are all the account numbers uh that um uh make up these right here and let's see that's not really important um and the stabilization tracking so did you and St have to build this what's that and Steve have to build this uh this spreadsheet uh arrangement we did indeed yeah good job thank you yeah um yeah I mean you know I think um keeping you know just keeping an eye on on the finances it it uh um I don't know maybe somebody could do it without a dynamic spreadsheet but my brain isn't that smart I need I need Excel help to do all the adding for it good way to track it all y yeah yeah all right let me just make make a note to send this to you all after the meeting all right uh for this year uh for for our our current fiscal year we're currently 3,191 cash positive um and yeah nothing nothing unusual there um let's see other news um I'm uh applying shoot or um I'm submitting a nomination for shuberry for an ndia Trailblazer award uh the ndia is the national digital inclusion Alliance and MBI and encouraged towns in Massachusetts that have a successful Network um and and who are doing things for digital equity which we are uh to apply there's like a couple of towns in Massachusetts that have already won these Awards um and um I don't see any downside to at least applying if there's no fee for it it doesn't obligate us to do anything except for share information about digital equity which we're doing anyway um and then that uh if we do get on their list and and get that recognition it'll just kind of be a feather in our cap and um maybe um uh make us eligible for additional grant funding so um yeah the the applications are due by November 1st so um I'm gathering documentation for that um speaking of digital Equity our report is done I think I sent that around last last month so the next phase of it is um MBI is going to get a copy of it and we'll start um kind of deciding on our our plan of how to use those funds um I don't know the process yet but I'll figure it out of you know kind of we've done all all the gates and and what's what's the last step before we actually get get those funds quite a dance don't they multi-level I mean you read the MBI stuff and it's like oh my God yeah like any like any grant program so many Hoops so much documentation it just you know it's just the way it is um I wish it was more money you know like it's it's I mean it's $56,000 at least but it could be more um so it's nothing to sneeze at but in terms of Grants it's not huge um all right um so that's kind of all that I have um for regular business uh before we move into chatting a bit about router questions does anybody have have any anything else that you want to uh discuss today I could just read one brief thing here uh is a financial related from the monu reporter my favorite little uh newspaper love the monu recorder yes and the town of Gil just bought a new truck and they borrowed 141,000 and change to buy it from uh SB East stampton Savings Bank uh they borrowed it for a year at a 4 and a half% interest rate and they took that one because it was the best deal they got it was the best bid and I'm just thinking you know we still have our outstanding note there um at one and a half one and a quarter percent we're still running for one more year and then uh in 2026 it goes up to 2% um but at that point the um principal is PID half of the principal has been paid down at that point so even though the interest steps up to 2% the payments continue to to drop lower so so I'm just thinking you know that uh one and a quarter per uh rate we've got on that loan it looks better and better when you see that you know town getting a four and a half percent rate on a on a loan and thinking it was a good deal so yeah yeah we we really no we nailed the timing we got like the lowest interest rates in history on that one no I mean we didn't really do anything for it but sometimes you get lucky sometimes you just get lucky wow awesome anything else all right um um so Steve I'm just gonna gonna start with some of your questions about about the routers um so I you said you have one of those the the kaix gigaspire um oh yeah yeah yeah I um which the three of us all yeah yeah I think Craig has yeah I I think it's the one that you have is the U6 um although it says GS4 I think they're the same model um I can't look at it because I you know I don't have one but um the the main the main router not the extender is known as the U6 the extenders I think are are the u4s is nowhere on it the label Steve Steve is it a black box that's about eight inches high yeah it's the same one that you meeting a couple years ago you it has my name on on it and yeah was sheld was putting these out to us to sort of beta test if you want to call it that yeah and you know the box is kind of a blank box you know it was not it's not labeled for retail sale clearly it's it's obviously meant is in a a uh institution you know for uh like um something that goes in a repair truck for them to install and not something that's sold off a shelf so there's very little documentation with it or and uh the label doesn't even have it's got that that name on it but doesn't have use doesn't does not say U6 and since that's what we're talking about I want to say well ask is it the same is this the same router we're talking about it's got to it's got to be they didn't they that's the only one that that that I that I know of um yeah it's it's the only one that's current okay yeah that's all just one three or four years old I believe now yeah it's been at least over two maybe three years since we got these so they they actually if you go on the KX site they actually have uh you know Wi-Fi 7 they have a fancier version as well so there there is something up Upstream of that but okay hold on a second I'm just um I'm looking for um an email there it is okay so um Steve you asked about the answer to um the lever shoot Berry service call comparison um and um I did put it into the document but I didn't do it till this morning so you may not have seen it so I did a basic search on the ticket system in Integrity because I I have access I can get in there and so I just took all of the tickets for the whole last year for shuberry and Leverett I can divide them out by that and so there was 509 tickets for shoot Berry and there there was 554 for Leverett then I went through and I divided them by um anything that had the word router in the subject line so any any router question whatsoever and then for from that we got 54 of those in SHO Berry and 72 in Leverett so just based on you know very basic numbers that shows that yes lever has more calls and more router calls it's not a large amount um and they have 100 less customers right or at least 100 less customers I believe I don't know um yeah I I I don't I I thought they were I thought they were significantly smaller than us um yeah I I couldn't tell you off offand how many how many customers they they do have less but I don't know how by how many yeah yeah yeah um just we need to PR rate but it's not much yeah yeah that's that's a that's a good thought um and then Kelly the customer service manager wrote back when I asked her like you know just anecdotally what what's your experience and she says the random router selection is a lot more difficult in the initial stages because no like just the connecting of them um is the hardest part um with all the customers choosing something different and many new customers have qu lots of questions about onboarding their new router and every process is different and each brand is different and so the the onboarding is tough for um you know since we're not making this network from scratch and we never will again kind of the onboarding isn't going to be a huge issue but if we do stop supporting routers altogether and just saying like it's a free-for-all like you know go go get your own routers we're not you know we're not paying for them that every and and I I I don't think that would be a great customer service move um to just have people go and and and and and and get whatever [Music] um so she also says that in regards to the life of the account she doesn't see much difference between random routers and the shoot spare routers um one of the benefits in she she she sees and shoots Berry is that they replace the existing router with a new one if they think the router is a problem you know they just say you know we replace it we'll run some Diagnostics in in Leverett they're like well you're getting service to your home and we can see it in the on good luck to you um and that you know as understandably customers are not thrilled about that just just being told like like the service is getting to your home you need to go you need to figure this out yeah that that's that would be very tough especially for some people to have suddenly go even if it's just to Staples to to buy a rouy you know it's like they've got to speak Spanish sort of thing or you know Swahili suddenly yeah yeah I got a I got an email today from a resident who um said um a year ago they were having problems and and a technician came out and replaced their modem I'm a little suspicious if she meant router or modem and then she said but over the last six months they've had no service and and the and sometimes they can make Wi-Fi calls and sometimes they can't so I'm you know I I I was um suspicious not suspicious but like you know I I I I don't know what's going on there and um uh you know she was she was very frustrated but also she hadn't called you know like things things and she's like I'm paying what am I paying $59.99 for you know every month shouldn't we have good service I'm like yes you should have good service like something is definitely wrong um so um and even her when what she states there is puzzling because I've had no service for six months sometimes I can do Wi-Fi calling sometimes I can't well those are two different things Wi-Fi calling is one of the most problematic um connectivity issues so if the only problem she had was with Wi-Fi calling you isolate that okay that's that's a particular thing it's you know it's not the most solid technology out there but if you're saying no service like no internet no uh that that's that's very different uh issue so had she cold Shell at all to discuss whatever it was that was going wrong for her unclear um it didn't it it didn't it didn't seem seem that of of you know it seemed like a recent problem of of the I don't think she had no service because I think that would have inspired a service call but she says uh what was it Wi-Fi calling is really inconsistent can't make or receive calls in any reliable way and then she said the computer often says no internet well that's that's a little different you know it could be the device it could be the router anyway we don't have to problem solve this there's not enough information we have no idea but I'm I'm using this as an illustrative point of um uh the the uh kind of like the misunderstanding of the you know of of the technology and just not you know not being comfortable with it and and I think honestly a lot of people are even uncomfortable making the phone call to say I don't like I don't have good service or a bunch of my devices don't really work really well um my oh I shouldn't I'm not gonna say her name but somebody that I know in town her battery unit had been beeping for a year and a half and she would hit this mute button and it would work for 24 hours and hit it and then she'd hit it again and hit it again the next day and the next day 18 months wow she she found you she tracked you down did she to raise these things yep yep and you know and I said you know why why why didn't you call and she's like I I I just I thought it was me that that I didn't I didn't know how to I didn't know how to fix it and I I don't like making tech support you know like call well and and I understand like you know that you get someone on the phone and they start talking you through things and and she's like and she didn't know she didn't know what it she didn't even know what it was she's like something there is beeping I know if I press that button it goes away okay yeah right didn't know of didn't know that was the battery um so well we hear things beeping and we don't know is it somebody's phone is it you know is it the stove what you know I can understand but once she found that button to push that to do that every day if if she holds the button if she holds the button in for five seconds it'll shut it down forever yeah I mean at that point You' say okay it's this item and it's got this is the name on it you know you could the battery is not working anymore so she needs power she she she needs a new battery or she needs a power adapter doesn't she so she obviously didn't um look at our our website either Gail because that answer would be in no webs yeah yeah all all all true all true but I I'm I'm a little bit worried that there's people out there who are just kind of like living with mediocrity of in you know in in their service or they have like you know two rooms where they just have no service because they don't you know they don't feel comfortable um putting in a Wi-Fi extender um um oh I have some neighbors very close to me who um as a as a favor they you know they said they were having speed problems so I just stopped by and I said yeah you need a Wi-Fi extender I just like walked around with my phone and I'm like this it the signal can't can't get through your beautiful concrete floor it's you know it's in the basement it just it's not going to happen like you can get a Wi-Fi extender you can you know drill up if you want and just move the router and as far as I know it still hasn't been fixed because the investment for people to figure out these Tech issues is more than just living with it of you know more than just pressing the button um so I don't know it it it it makes me sad and I want to like you know give people a better better experience here um and you know the other trick the other tricky bit I think is that a lot of people are getting older and less um less Adept at anything you so yeah and and I and I think less less motivated like people are I you know I know a lot of people are just like fed up with technology like well it works good enough I'm not going to invest my life in and and making making it better like this old laptop like n it works good enough yeah so to kind of roll this around to the decision to the discussion of what we should be the MLP should be doing going forward with routers and providing routers and where I had suggested we should consider I wasn't advocating that but I just thought we should consider do we just go the lever route and and no longer uh provide routers to customers um and it seems like you're saying that's not a good route because then if somebody does have a problem they don't know just where the problem is if they do call in the Tex support is not going to be able to help most likely not going to be help them because there's very little problem in our Network and even to the drop line I mean it doesn't we're not having many onts replaced here we're not having drop lines and jumpers to ons replaced um the signal is getting through to the ENT and the problem is the router or the the signal to the router the signal out from the router and um so if we are no longer supporting routers um it's just going to be well you're on on your own now I will say the other side of that is in Leverett they have there's at least one electrician maybe a couple of electricians that instead of rolling a truck from sheld for some problem in that's you know might be the router might be you know your computer um there are local people that will go out and work on house wiring I assume routers um our own Jim Hemingway is one of them in my understanding he's one of those people thinking of people that have this more as an official business than than just our uh our yeah laudable volunteer here um yeah they used to be 75 bucks an hour they're probably higher than that now but but it's yeah so let's figure they're 85 an hour or something of that order so it's still not trivial to uh and I think sheld um uh dispatches some yeah is that how that works in I believe so yeah yeah okay yeah and Collins electric is actually one of shelds providers now yeah I think think we didn't know that and it's what Grace Electric in in uh in Leverett is the local fell right there I think Grace is the one that goes out for um for for things that are not stuff on the road or or stuff to the drops or whatever drops yeah um oh how about the how about the sest you know looking at the survey I I wonder whether that woman it's probably not worthwhile looking to see whether that customer had filled in the survey but in any case um the survey oh my wife is home I'll get out of the here um uh the survey um said that people didn't want to generally pay more for for uh for a router Fuller service router thing but um but I I I think we should uh uh we should offer as has been dis proposed occasionally um the um enhanced service or you know whatever that would be called um I sweetie um uh Helen was on jury duty today so oh but I can't say anything else probably um and u h yeah so I would I would say if we could get sheld to propose what that would cost to um to have um a fully supported um you know a us6 or um uh Wi-Fi sex and uh and um you know supervised and have it it has to be more than the $250 a month because there should also be the it should also cover the cost of replacing it if if you know if it breaks after seven years or whatever the average life is expected to be so you know that has to be factored in um sheld only has to take the risk on sheld won't want to take the risk on it we we we should work out a figure if if we were going to offer that we would work out a figure that we would be U taking the chance on you know not quite being perfect on how much it costs and there has to figure in uh the hundred bucks to install it probably as well once again spread over but that would that would be an enhanced service that we could offer to those who wanted to pay extra for an enhanced service right let people choose yeah I think I think it is important to give choice on this instead of just you know raising you know the the cost of everyone and and and extra service I think one thing we really need to do is explain to people what they're getting with it you know like we say manage router and we know from that means from the technical standpoint but from the customer standpoint let them know exactly what it what it is um of like you can call up and find out your password or change it right like that's that's kind of the enduser uh experience or another thing that um I was thinking of in relation to like the the the Tik Tock being sued and this new awareness about uh kids in their digital health is that the uh parental controls of only allowing a Windows of time of connectiv ity um I think is going to be a big draw and yes our routers can currently do it but I think only about 10% of the people know how to do that right and and you know saying well if if you want an experience where you can call up sheld and say please um you know for the my kids's iPhone that you can see connected there just make it available these hours to these hours I I I think there could be some value in that that people would be really interested in and then the parent could tell the kids we don't have any control over this that's what the phone compan doing that sorry it's Kelly's fault it shelled um but I thought I thought a central problem was that if we were to um um purchase and distribute these um these routers from from KX that we had to had to buy into the whole service scene so to speak and we we couldn't you couldn't do what I'm doing right now which I which is you know sort of managing my router on my own without any need for any report and any service support from them and is it possible to um you know for us to install the routers without without um this um $2.50 a month I installed mine I mean you you've got to have well sure yeah it's it I mean some can do it most can most probably cannot so I mean supervised yeah that the routers cannot run without the service charge they they they can't run so in in that respect you you like like you can't just say oh I'm going to use this router but in a non-managed way nope if that if that router is live and active you're going to be paying the the fee for it what we could do though is give alternate routers right you can either you everybody in town is getting a free router upgrade you can get the kaix U6 which is managed and comes with all these benefits or you can just get a new free stronger router oh okay that's what I didn't understand okay I'm puzzled because uh Jim Graham and I and Craig have the KX U6 is are we paying I mean we're not paying anything more in our fee is the town paying shell no they're just as a as a courtesy they're they're letting us run it through its Pac Paces as a test so so you know it's it's a $6 a month that they're eating the cost of so generous the test okay so they're just testing yeah those but in fact they are being run as managed routers yes yes they they they can't in my understanding they can't run without that management software and that's why when they were distributed the gram I think you were passing them out at town meeting and at this point I've lost track of how many years ago it was mine has my name on the box okay know you had one with my name on it one with Jim's name one with Craig's name because because I think that that had to be well that had to be because it had to be pre-provisioned to match your on yeah specifically yeah yeah you know I wonder well I'll ask I I I feel like I've I've asked this question before about can these run in a non-managed way for the people who don't want to pay for it like is it a good like just standard rounder but I'm I'm almost certain that the answer was they will say no they you you don't get the software the software is needed to run okay so that means that to go this route it's a this is a big step big decision and a big step we can't ease into this we can't go halfway um because my part of my thought is well geez you know all the electronic waste that's out there and frankly I still have the lynus router that was working perfectly well but I swapped off to the the other one because well we had it why not try it out and so yeah some of those links this routers are dying and they need to be replaced but I suspect plenty of them are working fine and so I hate to say well we're going to throw away 700 routers when there's probably most of them there's no problem they're working fine so uh that is just you know additional thought I have on this I I I think the my guess is that uh that should this should this replacement occur that the our subscriber would keep the old router I unless we asked shell to take it away wouldn't you say wouldn't you think yeah that sheld is not going to want to take garbage yeah yeah it would be on the on the homeowner to dispose of it and yep it would it would create a lot of waste Electronics does fail um you know capacitors get old and and and uh yeah and and Steve yeah and we could we could slow roll this and say from today forward every router that fails gets replaced by U6 but then the homeowner is like my you replac my router now I'm paying $2.50 more per I don't want this yeah yeah you know that that or or we could we could just be like well we wait for them to fail and then as they fail the the customer gets a choice manage or un manage I think if we did that a lot of routers would start having accidents right they they hear that a router fails and their neighbor got got got a a better router that does better wi-fi calling and some some people go that rout a person that's contacted you about things not working they're not gonna be doing that because they don't you know I mean there's a mix of people that are really up on services and people that they just want to be able to get their email and and watch their YouTube and so yeah yeah there might be a few there might be a few people who do that G but keep in mind that if you hit it with a hammer then you're going to wait at least 12 hours until you know so so you gotta do you got to do it at a time you don't yeah you be very very calculating about the murder of your it used to be one of the tricks at at UMass you know that uh that if you if you if something wasn't working then you know someone would eventually turn up but if it was if it was broken like then yeah and so some people did do that but you know I don't think that many did that so yeah yeah and and and and also I just like we it would take it would take another you know five to 10 years to wait for everything to fail and I you know and I think for cost Effectiveness and like it's it's also kind of a bad service experience of like the router is going to start degrading it's going to start behaving funny and then eventually the person calls and then they have to have an appointment for someone to come and install instead of something more proactive um yeah I I think we are in a position of like if we're going to do this we have to do it in this kind of whole wholesale way of just everybody getting it any the the research does seem to indicate that all the routers and all the electronics in general but you notice it with out is because they're performing for you that um that they do um that they don't work as well you know and it's it's because you know it's because Electronics is everything is so fine that that just you know a little bit of degradation of of the uh you know of the chem of the the chemistry of the whole thing um you know a few molecules drifted out you know contamination uh humidity whatever it actually does um the other interesting thing in in digging deeper on router research is that um is that you know you're often told a power cycle if there's something not working what that does is it um it it clears registers that have um you know it's like your cach memory is limited in a router and and there's actually when it when you reboot when you re repower it it clears um at least some of that um and and for heavy users um there are there are pretty good quality routers that now say you should power cycle it once a month if you've got a household with yeah it's just like just something to do as part of your routine so um you know the cash memories aren't big enough I guess so Graham just understand what you're saying you're saying a router is not necessarily like say an old incandescent light bulb where it either works or poof it's out correct it router it may it doesn't go 100% fine and then it's just not working but it can it starts to gradually fail in a way that you maybe wouldn't notice yes and it's because there's a lot of chemistry and a lot of things that are really close together and every time there's a lightning flash nearby you get little holes poked in you know things that don't make it fail necessarily though can um but it's just damage over time a little bit like our brains you know as we get older you know some of us not not you guys oh no definitely so you know there's wear and tear and it's you could if you if you had a elron microscope you would be able to see it uh and a sophisticated sort of thing but it is basically um you know uh slow deterioration and it's not catastrophic usually until it is catastrophic so yeah I got one other question that is a tangent to this but you know the VIN diagram there'd be a little overlap here um we are putting aside this currently 45,000 year we started at 38,000 year into the stabilization fund that was designed to replace all the electronics um in a range of s years uh and we definitely were considering that we that that would a good chunk of that would go towards replacing the electronics in the Hut then we met with people from sheld and HG at the hut y again I've lost track of was this a year ago a couple years ago um and to discuss this issue with them just you know what needs to be replaced and it comes out well a lot of the stuff in the H doesn't need to be replaced at any point because it's passive there's no Active Electronics in there and those there is there is an active Electronics but it's very very rugged and they don't change it out very often the e7s c i I know that there was some but instead of looking what we initially did was look at the entire cost of outfitting and configuring the Hut all the equipment that went in there and it costs so much and so we're going to need to replace all of that in seven years no a lot of that does not need to be replaced there are certain components that do but some of them were like the power supplies and the batteries which they were replacing already and needed to be done regularly so I got down yeah those E7 units those were going to need to be replaced at some point but it was a fairly small percentage of the total amount of the expense of the Hut and we were going to ask sheld HTE for an estimate on that and it we didn't get it right away and I've lost I brought this up again and I can't remember did we ever get a figure from them on that yeah yeah so the only thing that that they said is going to basically need replacement is the um uh what are they called the C the very expensive cards yeah um and the the abbreviation for them the I want to call The Spits the the E7 the E7 cards and and they're like um like 5,000 a piece or something but is that is that the cards that are driving the the lasers sending signal out I can imagine they're working hard two of them there are two of them in each E7 yeah e7s yes that's it that's it and and that those those are the things that would need to be replaced as they fail and we've we've had one failure so far for one of them that was that was the due to a Crocker ke dropped caused by yeah yeah that was the leftover bolts yeah the missing bolts and and actually that that was the that was my first contact with sheld because remember they they they did Mutual Aid and they're you know they had they had a spare they had a spare and they drove it up and they're like don't worry about it um so anyway um besides those there's there's really nothing that they said that needed to be replaced it's not like these these things wear out at any any rate so much of our Hut is passive right so what I'm thinking is where we had thought you know there's hundreds of thousands of dollars of gear in there that's going to need to be replaced in in five years no we might have 20,000 and we've got over 200,000 in our um stabilization account I've forgotten with the last figure that went in there but it's in the ballpark of that so um and we're continuing to put 45,000 a year into it we we step that up a couple years ago and we lowered our rates and we were concerned about lowering the rates and I said okay let's step up what we're putting into stabilization that way we're um we're cushioning any you know future issue here um so it seems like the biggest issue we're looking at for replacement it are the the routers and the onts it's the customer the the ons won't need replacing because they're as made as rugged as the uh they are you know 99.999 that their their um telom grade equipment so so you wouldn't see any reason to do a periodic no yes those are just as as needed yeah they're as rugged as the other end those two things are made okay to be telom standard although they do require power because that's what that those those those battery failing for um yeah maybe we'd want to replace the ons at some point to get ones that had higher capacity well the if you wanted to go to 10 gig um yeah then you need a you need a different ENT and but you need a different service because the outputs on the e7s are one gig so yeah so and you can get them you can definitely get them but it' be a fancy that would be the definitely the business quality Ju Just to point out that the first step you do is you do a second one gig probably um because you you probably don't want to pay for the price of of of a 10 gig service or a 4 gig service whatever the whatever the next step is you you would just say can you give me a um so I'm not sure whether um two fibers come in on on the average drop but um but it's it's as cheap as getting another drop there there are two drops if you want so okay well I just yeah so I'm just thinking about the the finances of this yeah so currently while um we've been looking into this um we have 200 uh say 254,000 right now in our uh depreciation fund or stabilization that includes the 45,000 that was just put in for this year this calendar year but it was actually last fiscal year it was I think April or thereabouts and there's 45,000 in the current fiscal year budget no no that that that was put in in August you sure about yeah Gail moved it almost immediately because we're getting really good high interest rates on our stabilization fund yeah so she moved it in like August 1st H so so including fiscal year 25 stabilization contribution that's where that 253 number comes from okay yep um so um the the math um right now is um $146 or so per router times 770 households um times about $250 per installation um that's the 90 hours technician plus van um plus um like maybe 50 bucks in um miscellaneous hardware so Allin is 28,8 36 so so that's the the cost of the routers themselves plus the the uh $250 per install so if we wanted to do this tomorrow technically we could afford it of just everybody gets a new router whether or not they want to get a managed router or a regular router so anyway just something think of these numbers are all on that the the router spreadsheet information uh or this the document that I sent around so feel free to take a look at that and and look at the actual numbers but a regular router a non-managed router would mean a different piece of Hardware is that yeah so we'd have to find a different piece of Hardware a different router you're saying that Hardware yeah yeah right right so it's $146 per router plus the 2 50 install fee but 146 is for the gig oh I see what you're saying yes yes yes the 146 is is the the U6 um I bet that that cost has gone up a little bit um I think the last time I asked this was it was six months ago so it's probably even gone up a little bit since then but yes you are right if we wanted to use if people got the choice to get not that yes we would have to choose choose a different router to offer to people which is probably not to cost more not to try uh to strike a um a a warning note on this but you realize if Trump gets elected his his 100% tariff will will hit these routers pretty the cost of these routers pretty hard I'm afraid I wonder I mean that's that's we have no control over that of course but that's that is a possibility should that Calamity actually took place because uh they'd be coming from foreign countries yep China China specifically the you know allic stuff comes from I think Taiwan or China or both I'm not sure but I know that they come from one of those two places I think the router I was just looking at it to try and find the model name that would say U6 which I couldn't find and I think I did see Taiwan on it yeah I think maybe yeah but yeah does Taiwan count as China to to Trump yes it it does yeah close enough yeah close well throw something else into the mix here yeah yeah let's yay we get to worry about something else we got a we could have a lot to worry about so so what you're so gaale what you're saying is that um it will cause us two wa 836 to replace everybody's router either a managed or an unmanaged router but it would also for those who choose manage it would also cost them an additional 250 a month if they chose that yeah we could make it their choice okay yeah yeah if they chose that I think that we could we could find a decent router for about $150 that was non-managed I'm actually not not so worried about that of like yeah we can find that we might I think that could be Wi-Fi 6 as well a wifi router yeah okay I assume we'd probably have to source that ourselves I doubt that sheld is interested in buying those but I don't know maybe if they did it then we'd have to pay them for the service for sure um sorry I had think they have a markup in their contract I'm not sure on materials do you know if sheld from a standpoint is okay with um billing some customers 250 for the management not others yes they're they're fine with it that was uh one of the questions we asked last year ah good okay I was gonna ask that too yeah no harder no harder than no harder than making a different bill for a telephone including in your or two telephones so it's it's it's not it's it's it's easy bookkeeping for them yeah I'm I mean it seems like we're not at all ready to dive into something at this point no this is no this is going to be a process I I just want to make sure that pretty much every meeting we're um you know just talking about it a little bit um and you know we've got a big thing coming up will be the new ISP uh contract we should see how that plays out yeah um hold on I think this is FedEx here go I liked your term Gale um uh digital health for children I didn't I didn't I didn't coin that something that that people have been talking about a bit in digital Equity oh yeah yeah yeah okay now I dropped my glasses somewhere all right I I think we could also figure that a replacement of all the routers could be phased over you know a year or even two years um yeah um it it's gonna take a long time you know you just like one dedicated technician could maybe maybe do for a day but that might be a stretch um and then you know just uh how many how many days was it take to do 770 process yeah I just I say it it it it gets phased to do something as big as that because shell doesn't have a technician sitting around who just you know has that much that little to do on the average day shell probably won't provide us with what a what an ideal unmanaged router might be for us to choose that would be something that we'd have to figure out ourselves um no they I mean they already are our 70 our um EA 7300s the linkx they they started having trouble getting supplies for that because they stopped making them and so now they're they they're using the EA 7500 500s yeah which is virtually identical except it's a little bit better performer but what I meant was um uh when it comes time to do the big the big um um managed versus unmanaged offer that we would probably have a completely different Wi-Fi 6 router uh in mind as the as the unmanaged choice correct and if so is sheld would sheld be involved in in U helping us select that particular item or I I yeah I'm sure I'm sure that they they would they would advise on that um when we asked them this question you know like I don't know four or five months ago when the the they H were having trouble finding the 7300s um I talked with them and and and they said you know just stay in the class stay you know it's not going to look different to the customers if your neighbor have has something they're the basically the same thing only a little bit better and so for now that's what they recommended they would like to see everybody doing manage routers it just it makes their service and um management of all of our customers way easier on them so um yeah they you know they're they're they're very transparent about that they they they that's what they Supply to all of their customers and they they would like that for us too um but I think if we ask them they they would help us find find something but as we discovered you know there's so many options out there um and what I we'd probably just go with one of the major manufacturers and you know just choose a decent router there okay as buch of good ones yeah yeah and we're not talking about doing this right away so of course technology changes and you know maybe see what's available at the time we actually want to make a change yeah yeah prices will slowly go up and performance will go up very very significantly so yeah you it's good it's it's a good deal all right um anything else for tonight um just to just to say the um you know that the um as alluded to before that um uh the Tik Tock and and uh and and Facebook is being sued by State's Attorney General um um because they have been exploiting children and whistleblowers and and and these companies have understood that they're damaging children and um and of course they make so much money out of it all that they that they can't hold themselves back but but um but as we consider anything with MBI you know and and digital Improvement to our town we should have it in the back of our heads and also we should figure that um that um that the laws are going to change they already have changed in some states that children can't have iPhones in school for instance they go in lock bags and stuff like that but there's going to be let's go just just for us to know that there's going to be laws and stuff that'll protect children that that that at the moment um some some gen Z kids are you know totally we've done a horrible experiment on them you know or we've fed them to the we fed them to the uh you know to whatever so I would suspect this is something that sheld is keeping on top of because uh as an ISP they need to be aware of I you say I would expect that I would hope there on they'd be aware of the problem but there's nothing they can do except go offer um offer services like um you know we can we can shut down you know the porn sites and we can put blocks on things um so for for Individual Services if you ask for it so um they'll only do that on managed routers they can't do it and they won't do it on a you know unmanaged so we we can manage it ourselves if we sophisticated so yeah it's it's really only when they change the laws that it it helps because a little bit like when I was a kid and um you know my parents didn't want to buy a TV and I just went off and watched TV at other people's houses and eventually they figured if they were going to see their son that they were going to have to get a TV um it's really hard to tell your kid that they can't have a smartphone if everybody other or if half the other kids have smartphon so it really has to change at a legislative level um for the states and maybe the the federal government eventually that's all I got on that all right all right um well good it's um well Happy fall everyone it's it's our meeting is ending and it's now dark yeah here we are again and let's see next meeting day is I get my analog calendar you get your good old calendar out Steve yeah uh it is the 20th of November okay W years ticking by did anyone see the aurora during last week fastic was there could you see it here yes yeah yeah there were a whole bunch of people down at the lake U we could see it at our house and then we scooted down to the lake I can't remember what day of the week last week oh I'm so sorry to miss it the um that the there's a comet um yes there is and I I I'm I'm GNA try to it's not it's not dark enough yet but um I'm G to try to catch catch that I um oh sometime over the next hour look for Venus it's to the upper right of wherever Venus is a little cloudy here you might be luckier than me yeah outlas the the outlas something uh comment yeah we went up to the town common last night hoping to see it we probably were too late anyway but the moon was up and bright and didn't realize there's a spotlight on the church and two big lights on the post office so the town common that seemed like a great place to view the sky was not so um because where we we got so many trees around us that we we don't see the Horizon anywhere know missed the Aurora I went Dash when I heard about it I went out and looked and didn't see anything that well maybe it's because we don't can't see the north very well but then I thought oh it was it happened like an hour ago it's already gone so you can always Point your iPhone your your smartphone at at the sky and take a picture because the the the the the smartphones are more sensitive to the um the frequencies of the color and you you know it's it's worth something to see oh it was glowing even though I couldn't see it with my eyeballs that's kind of shocking but yeah that's right yeah so all right well happy astronomy and hopefully we can see the comment moob on the web Mar John yes so second did did my audio improve at all did it change or it was the room you were in I think Graham when you came into this room I I think the other room was too live for some reason yeah it's like too echoey or something okay right and just out of interest do you get um do you get more feedback um if you talk now if it's talk and see if you get feedback on my microphone on on my speaker being louder no no it seems the same okay that's good enough okay I was muting myself more just in case that was an issue but okay that's good lovely see you next month if I don't see you all before all right take care bye bye bye