SHELL POINT RESIDENTS' COUNCIL SPECIALMEETING
Special Meeting - Social Center
June 15, 2010

ATTENDANCE BY COURT:
Arbor            Winona Whitehead
Cameo            Russel Peters
Cellana        Gerry Wilson
Coquina        John Bendall
Eagles Preserve    Jerry Ingalls
Harbor Court        Joan Perry
Junonia        Mary Ellen Taylor  
                  (Send Minutes to John Gill)
King's Crown        Sidney Hansen
Lakewood        Bobbie Phillips
Lucina            Thomas Timothy
Macoma        Pat Straup
Nautilus        Mike Klein
Oakmont    Bill Lanpher
Palm Acres    Ted Rodgers
Parkwood     Donald Miltner
 Pavilion    William Staples
Periwinkle    Grayce Gore
Rosemont    Richard Maass
Royal Bonnet    Sylvia Chamberlin
Sand Dollar    Harold Waldron
Sundial    Chris Gooden
Tellidora    No Rep Present
Turban    John Schulke


CALL TO ORDER AND OPENING PRAYER
Chairman Lanpher called the meeting to order at 9:15 AM and Russel Peters offered the opening prayer.

ROLL CALL OF COURT REPRESENTATIVES
The roll was called with those present listed above.

PETER DYS
Mr. Dys announced that the purpose of this Special Meeting of the Residents' Council was to present information relative to the Shell Point Resident TV System.  In the past there have been many inquiries regarding this matter.  Negotiations for an upgrade have been ongoing and a final decision, after consulting with the court representatives, will be forthcoming and a contract executed on behalf of Shell Point with CenturyLink.  

Mr. Dys introduced Scott Moore, who reviewed the matter in great detail, the particulars of which are contained in the attachments hereto.

All current and future information regarding the services provided in the contract will be shared with residents through Shell Point Life, Shell Point Television (SPTV), and public meetings with residents of Shell Point as well as Century Link.

It is anticipated that the new service will be in operation in August 2010.

Respectfully submitted,

Linda Nickerson
Recording Secretary



CenturyLink General Information Handout

History

For the last 10 years it has been the intention of Shell Point to provide to the Shell Point resident the same basic cable TV services available to the homeowner in the broader Lee County community. Ideally, the basic cable package would be provided as part of the monthly maintenance fees. As part of the desired cable service, there would be an option for the resident to expand that service at their cost, by contacting the cable provider directly. The package would include the SPTV channels.

Stumbling blocks
There have been a number of stumbling blocks in this effort, not the least of which is the cost due to the limited providers. For example, Comcast wanted a startup fee of $275,000 and requested that Shell Point fund capital infrastructure improvements of $500,000 in order for them to become our cable TV provider. In addition to the startup and capital expenditures, their cost per drop (per resident) more than doubled the cost per drop of our current provider making the move to Comcast impractical at best. The "last straw" was Comcast's inability to comingle Shell Point's TV channels as part of their programming package.

The move to Direct TV
Last year the decision was made to pursue the only available avenue that would allow Shell Point residents the ability to upgrade the cable TV service in their homes. Shell Point agreed to absorb the majority of the infrastructure costs to install community satellite dishes on any residential building in which a resident desired to purchase Direct TV. Direct TV fulfills the majority of the residents cable requirements and in addition, there are a number of "sport packages" that are only available with Direct TV. The thought here was that if the time came that Shell Point could someday move to a cable TV provider, there would remain the resident that desired one of the sport packages and there would be a choice in provider for premium channels.


CenturyLink enters the picture
In 2009 CenturyLink, a small phone/cable company out of Louisiana purchased Embarq. Embarq was Shell Point's phone provider at the time of the purchase. In November of 2009 CenturyLink approached Shell Point and expressed a desire to provide high speed internet and "video services" (cable TV). Their initial offer was similar to that of Comcast's proposal; large capital costs on Shell Point's part, the inability to comingle SPTV and an annually operational cost increase of 80%. We countered CenturyLink with what would be our "list of demands". The list included the fact that we would pay no infrastructure costs, SPTV would need to be part of the programming and the cost per user would need to be considerably lower than it was proposed. CenturyLink went back to the drawing board.

Negotiations continued for six months
Over the next six months we met with CenturyLink numerous times. We began with proposed infrastructure costs and startup fees of over $500,000 and an on-going annual cost increase of approximately $111,600 (30%).  At this stage in the negotiations, adding the Spell Point channels to the programming was not possible.

After four meetings, the price per drop remained unacceptable and SPTV could not be added into the programming when/if individuals upgraded service (more on upgraded service later).

A breakthrough on the negotiations
In May, CenturyLink communicated their desire to meet to discuss a revised price per drop and share the engineering solution to broadcasting Shell Point's TV channels at any level of TV package desired by the customer. It was at this meeting that the price per drop was finally in line and CenturyLink was no longer requesting infrastructure expenditures on the part of Shell Point as part of the cable service provider switch. Two more meeting followed whereby the formal contract agreement was reviewed and modified, and on June 18th (Friday) we expect to have the final agreement in hand and ready to sign.

The results of the contract negotiations are really quite remarkable. All of the credit needs to go to Peter Burt the Technical Support Services Manager and Paul Yacovitch our Property Manager. Their patience and stick-to-itiveness made this change possible.

Backing up - why switch?
One might say that we have a pretty good channel lineup. The service is pretty good most of the time; although there is snow and "rain fade" from time to time...

The following outlines the reasons to change:
Quality of service
We will experience considerably less rain fade with the change.
Because the signal is "all digital" it means for a better picture.
90% of the equipment that we have to pay to maintain in our distribution center at the chiller plant goes away.
The dishes that we rely on at the Chiller Plant go away; no threat of a loss due to storms.
We end up with more channels in the lineup.
Future Growth - Senior TV is locked into the channels that they provide. CenturyLink will add channels as they become available.

Problem - Ability for the residents to purchase upgraded service
With our current cable provider there is no opportunity for residents to upgrade their service or purchase premium channels without adding Direct TV.
TiVo and/or a DVR cannot be used with our current cable provider.
Movies on Demand cannot be purchased with our current cable provider.

It is a strategic business decision for Shell Point moving forward
The limitations of our current cable provider are perceived as a takeaway associated with moving to Shell Point.

It should be noted that the channel lineups are not identical:
There are approximately 21 additional channels that will be provided as part of Shell Point's basic package with CenturyLink.
Approximately 13 channels presently part of the basic package we enjoy now will go away.
11 of these 13 channels can be purchased as part of the first upgrade package from CenturyLink and two of the 13 are simply not available.

HD
HD as part of the basic package will remain the same (the local channels)

What about Direct TV - can't we get those things with Direct TV?
You actually can purchase premium channels, utilize TiVo (or a DVR) with Direct TV. In addition, you can purchase various sport packages not available presently from CenturyLink or Comcast. The availability of Direct TV as well as CenturyLink will offer the Shell Point resident any choice for TV service available to the broader community. With Direct TV, the resident and Shell Point have an infrastructure cost that is greater than that of the cost to upgrade with CenturyLink but with Direct you can receive the sport packages. CenturyLink doesn't have the sport packages but with the direct digital signal they claim to have a better/clearer picture at a lower installation cost for upgrades. The choice is yours when you upgrade. Direct TV was not able to provide Shell Point's basic cable package under our terms.

In summary:
We are at the door to achieving a goal that has been in the works for well over 10 years. The goal was to provide to the Shell Point resident the same service that they left at their private home to come to Shell Point. The general engineering, the ability to utilize phone lines for video (cable TV), has only been available to Shell Point for the last 6 months, the technology that will allow Shell Point's channels to co-exist within the system was engineered 30 days ago and we only moved to finalize the contract since learning of the engineering and establishing an acceptable cost structure. To say the least, we are moving at an incredible pace.

What is the next step?

Signing the contract
This first thing we have to do is finalize the agreement and sign the contract. That is scheduled to take place the end of the week, or the beginning of next week at the latest.

Notification of the residents

The meeting today is the first step.

There will be a Shell Point Life article that contains most of the information I've shared with you today.

There will be numerous Shell Point TV spots explaining the change and the timing

If necessary, there will be an open forum in the Church Auditorium

Information on cable upgrades

CenturyLink would like to come in at the onset of the change to market cable TV upgrades and packages and explain the detail of each of the packages.

We see this happening this summer and then again in the late fall.

Implementation:
When: We are shooting for August 10th to complete the switch

The technical end of the implementation will take between 45 - 90 days
For the resident who doesn't wish to upgrade they will notice a brief down time at best. The intention is to make the switch in the very off hours.

Shell Point Basic TV Channel Lineup as proposed 6/18/10
Channel 

Channel Displayed on Customer TV

Channel Name

Category 

2

2

NBC-2

Local

3

3

PBS-3

Local

4

4

FOX-4

Local

5

5

CBS

Local

6

6

The CW

Local

7

7

ABC-7

Local

8

8

 SP Reading Service

Private Access 

9

9

NBC NewsNow

Local

10

10

CTN

Local

11

11

 SP TV

Local

12

12

 SP Village Church

Local

13

13

 SP Spcl Programming

Local

14

14

LATV

Local

15

15

TV Guide

 

16

16

QVC

Shopping

17

17

Home Shopping Network (HSN) 

Shopping

18 (Police, Fire)

18

Government Access

PEG

19 (Police, Fire)

19

Government Access

PEG

20 (Police, Fire)

20

Educational Access

PEG

21

21

PBS World

Private Access 

22

22

NFL Network

Sports 

23

23

Golf Channel

Sports 

24

24

Fox Sports Network Florida

Regional Sports

25

25

Sun Sports

Regional Sports

26

26

Big Ten Network (Florida)

Regional Sports

27

27

ESPN (Ft Myers)

Regional Sports

28

28

ESPN2 (Ft Myers)

Regional Sports

29

29

ESPN Classic

Sports 

30

30

Jewelry Television 

Shopping

31

31

Shop NBC 

Shopping

32

32

USA Network

General 

33

33

TBS

General 

34

34

A&E

General 

35

35

BET (Black Entertainment Television)

General 

36

36

Bravo

General 

37

37

Comedy Central

General 

38

38

E! Entertainment Television

General 

39

39

FX Network

General 

40

40

TNT (Turner Network Television)

General 

41

41

Spike TV

General 

42

42

---- not assigned ----

 

43

43

Telemundo

Local

44

44

SyFy 

General 

45

45

WGN America

General 

46

46

Food Network

General 

47

47

Home & Garden Television (HGTV)

General 

48

48

Lifetime Television

General 

49

49

Lifetime Real Women

General 

50

50

Lifetime Movie Channel

Movies 

51

51

Univision

Local

52

52

Oxygen

General 

53

53

Hallmark Channel

General 

54

54

The Weather Channel

News 

55

55

Bloomberg Television 

News 

56

56

CNN (Cable News Network) 

News 

57

57

CNN Headline News

News 

58

58

MSNBC

News 

59

59

CNBC

News 

60

60

Fox News Channel

News 

61

61

National Geographic Channel

Educational 

62

62

Discovery Channel

Educational 

63

63

History

Educational 

64

64

Travel Channel 

Educational 

65

65

The Learning Channel (TLC)

Educational 

66

66

Boomerang

Family

67

67

PBS Kids Sprout

Family

68

68

ABC Family Channel

Family

69

69

Disney Channel

Family

70

70

Cartoon Network

Family

71

71

Nickelodeon

Family

72

72

TV Land

General 

73

73

MTV

Music

74

74

CMT (Country Music Television)

Music

75

75

VH1

Music

76

76

TruTV

General 

77

77

C-SPAN

News 

78

78

C-SPAN2

News 

79

79

Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) 

Faith

80

80

TBN - Trinity Broadcasting Network 

Faith

81

81

PBS Knowledge

 

82

82

PBS Create

 

83

83

SP Angel One

Faith 

84

84

SP Inspirational Channel

Faith 

85

 

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guard

86

 

Local Off Air QAM #1 HD

 

87

 

Local Off Air QAM #2 HD

 

88

 

Local Off Air QAM #3 HD

 

89

 

Local Off Air QAM #4 HD

 

90

 

Local Off Air QAM #5 HD

 

91

 

Local QAM - future HD

 

92

 

Local QAM - future

 

93

 

DOCSIS #3

 

94

 

DOCSIS #4

 

95

 

DOCSIS #5

 

96

 

DOCSIS #6

 

97

 

DOCSIS #7

 

98

 

Not Available (FM Use)

 

99

 

Not Available (FM Use)

 

100

 

Not Available (FM Use)

 

101

 

DOCSIS #1

 

102

 

DOCSIS #2

 

103

 

 SP: Digital Music: Pop & Hits

 

104

 

 SP- Digital Music: Smooth Jazz

 

105

 

 SP Digital Music: Big Band

 

106

 

 SP Worship Channel

 

107

 

 SP WGCU Reading Radio Service

 

108

 

 SP WGCU Classical Music

 

109

 

 SP Arts

 

110

 

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