Technology 1. The technical problems La Plaza has experienced the past 4 - 6 weeks were caused by power outages due to stormy weather, inadequate coveage by technical staff, and system problems with ANS, our Internet provider. To ensure La Plaza has as close as possible 24/7 coverage of the system, the following technical coverage procedures have been established: a. Customer Reports ----------------------------- During business hours, customer reports will be handled by the Help Desk. After business hours and on weekends, customer reports will be directed to the System Problem Report (SPR) voice-mail box. To be most helpful, customers will be asked to leave a message with the answers to as many of the following questions as possible: 1) date and time you are calling 2) are you dialing into Taos, Questa, or Penasco 3) what error messages are you receiving 4) does your modem connect to a La Plaza modem 5) can you login using your username and password 6) can you get your email 7) can you browse the Internet b. Technical Monitoring Procedures --------------------------------------------------- Technical staff members will have system Monitoring, Maintenance, and Reporting (MMR) responsibilities. These responsibilities will be rotated among the technical staff, usually on a weekly basis, excepting vacations, holidays, etc... When on MMR duty (upon approval by the ED), the staff member will either reduce the normal work week office hours by 20, or the staff member will be compensated an additional 20 hours for that work week. (The additional cost for the technical monitoring is approximately $3500. These dollars pay for the additional coverage of 280 hours in the remaining months of 1998.) Monitoring procedures: ( specific tests will not be specified for security reasons) 1) check the System Problem Report (SPR) voice-mail and investigate relevant problems 2) dial-in the Taos digital 3) DNS test 4) Connectivity test 5) Mail server test 6) Mail Queue test 7) WWW Test 8) System Activity tests Maintenace procedures: 1) problems detected via Monitoring will be investigated and resolved via remote access if possible. 2) problems which require a site visit (Taos) will be resolved, if detected prior to 10 PM; otherwise, the problem will be resolved no later than 8:00 AM the next day. Reporting procedures: 1) problems will be reported to customers viathe SPR voice-mail a. Nature of the problem b. Expected time of resolution, if known 2) problems will be reported to customers via e-mail if e-mail and connectivity are accessible a. Nature of problem b. Expected time of resolution, if known MMR Schedule Guidelines: Monday - Friday: 8AM, 8PM, 10PM Saturday and Sunday: 8AM, 12PM, 4PM, 8PM, 10PM Since implementing the procedures, the system has been monitored and only one incident has required staff maintenance after hours. The problem was resolved and the users were notified withing 8 hours of the resolution. 2. I met with Jeffery Morgan, Presbyterian Medical Services Foundation Director, on July 15 and discussed the request for donation to resolve the Questa connectivity problems. See report sent to the Board via email on July 22, 1998 with the connectivity costs for moving and installing the server, personnel costs, and proposal for public access in Costilla. I spoke with Mr. Morgan on July 28, 1998 and he was meeting with the PMS CEO to discuss the proposal. 3. Questa Health Clinic Director, Gene Goetz, and I interviewed and hired a Community Outreach Trainer to replace Ruby Garcia at the Questa Youth Center. Renee Martinez started work on August 1 and has begun receiving training from Loretta Suazo regarding curriculum for Internet classes and facilitating the public access at the Youth Center. Renee is a full-time student at UNM Taos, her class schedule allows for 16 hours at the Youth Center and 4 hours at the Health Clinic. The public access schedule will be 4 hours in the evening (M-T) and 4 hours on Friday at the Clinic. 4. I have been attending the Taos County Telecommunications Task Force meetings the past several months and again on July 22, 1999. The Task Force is working closely with USWest to develop a business case for USWest to install Frame Relay service at the USWest Taos Central Office. USWest states the Frame Relay will provide the availability of more advanced, less expensive telecommunications data services in the Taos region. USWest also states Frame Relay will significantly reduce the cost for high-sped data lines and provide more dedicated circuits. The Town of Taos has engaged Patrick Finn, VisionArt, Inc., to develop the business plan. I received a request for a letter of support for the Frame Relay installation. I am reluctant to send a letter as there has been no engineering evaluation of the proposed Frame Relay by USWest. The only contact with USWest is Patrick Finn and the Town Manager, Gus Cordova, neither of whom are engineers. I do not know if Frame Relay is the premium connectivity service for Taos County. I am requesting knowledgeable Board members to attend the next Task Force meeting and evaluate the proposal. I inquired with Gus Cordova, if there could be a Task Force meeting without USWest so discussion could be held without the telecoms input. Mr. Cordova stated such a meeting could be help; however, he has not scheduled the meeting. Community Development/Outreach 1. Barb Hau and I met with staff from American Medical Institute and the UNM Albuquerque Cancer Research Dept. to discuss the project being submitted to the National Cancer Institute for the cancer research in Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico. AMC will develop the RFP and submit for approval. La Plaza will be a collaborative agency by providing the use of the free public access sites in Taos, Questa, and Penasco for the training and testing of the research curriculum. The project will test using web-based communications to prevent and intervene with cancer using diet information. The targeted population is adults in rural communities. La Plaza will realize dollars for personnel, office space, and Community Outreach trainers. We will request dollars for technology in years 3 and 4 of the 4 year project. 2. "Wacky for the Web" computer camp is being held at La Plaza, 8-10 - 14 for 6 kids, ages 12 - 14. Nancy Montano and Loretta Suazo have developed 5 days of training in Internet services, web design, digital camera, and research for school projects. Monthly Statistics: 1. Dial-in stats for July,98 Total # Users: 1727 Total # dial-in: 1279 (74% of total users) Penasco # Users: 57 Peansco # Sessions: 2495 Questa # Users: 93 Questa # Sessions: 3371 Taos # Users: 1162 Taos # Sessions: 61438 Taos Total Time: 21936.24 hours 2. Classes offered at La Plaza Easy Web Page Design - 7 attendees HTML - 4 attendees Public Orientation - 8 Intro to Email - 8 Intro to WWW - 6 Total - 33 attendees 3. Public Access Users: La Plaza 935 users San Cristobal 25 users Penasco 302 users Questa no data submitted 4. New Registrations for July Primary Accounts - 91 Secondary Accts - 14 Reactivated Acct - 10 Scholarship Acct - 1 Staff accts - 2 Total 118 5. Closed Accounts in July 10 indicated they were moving 2 indicated not using 2 poor service/unable to access 1 can't afford 20 no reason given 40 due to past due balances of 50 days 75 total 6. Deleted Accounts Reactivated Acct August 40 July 41 8 June 33 5 May 64 14 April 50 9 7. Past Due Notices sent 91 collected 43 deleted 40 other 6 8. User Fees Projection for July $19000 Collected in July $20671.70 Financial Report To be mailed under separate cover to Board members.
Judith Pepper, Executive Director, La Plaza Telecommunity