NCF Board of Directors
Minutes of Board Meeting
November 14, 2023
Minutes of a meeting of the Board of Directors
Board members present:
Anis Hanna (gb499) Chair
Peter MacKinnon (fr198) 2nd Vice-Chair
Graeme Beckett (aw958) Secretary
Christopher Cope (bz787)
Michael Chan (ga869)
Laura Novitsky (gd477)
Eddie Villarta (gd683)
Chris Taylor (fs180)
Steve Fanjoy (gd782)
Regrets:
Majd Karam (gc029) 1st Vice Chair
Emmanel Adenlolu (gc476) Treasurer
NCF Management/Staff present:
Executive Director: Shelley Robinson
- Confirmation of Quorum
Quorum was confirmed
- Consent Agenda (45 minutes: questions & comments or corrections)
- Minutes of board meeting November 14, 2023
- Regular Meeting Day & Time Discussion (Anis Hanna)
Following the discussion it was decided that board meetings will be held on the 3rd Tuesday of the month except on holidays.
Motion: To move in-camera.
Proposer: Christopher Cope (bz787)
Seconder: Chris Taylor (fs180)
The motion was carried.
- Executive Director's Report
The Executive Director's report was submitted in advance of the Board meeting. Highlights of the open portion of the meeting are provided below.
Operations:
● Office hours are currently Monday to Friday, 9am-7pm with remote support on Saturdays 10am-5pm
● A number of NCF’s DSL members with landline phone service have been affected by Bell upgrading its network infrastructure from traditional copper POTS (plain old telephone service) to one backed by fibre optic cable (FTTP). These lines deliver DSL over a ‘wet line’ with no additional monthly surcharge.
● Many DSL members with wet lines/landlines were contacted by Bell saying they had to transition
their phone service to FTTP by November 1st or risk losing it. We confirmed with Bell that these
messages were sent in error: Bell landline customers with wholesale DSL internet services were not
affected by this change. Some members received an email correcting this mistake, some didn’t. Some of those who received the message about the error later received more messages about the
November 1st FTTP transition deadline: it was very confusing for members.
● This has now been resolved and as far as we know, no members lost either their phone or DSL
service on November 1st. Those members that did transition to FTTP-backed phone service had to be
moved to dry lines to continue/restore service.
● We mentioned these issues in two of our submissions to the CRTC Review of the Wholesale
Internet policy.
● We continue to do network upgrades overnight, posting maintenance windows on the StartPage.
● Due to some equipment failure on October 23rd some NCF members' modems weren't re-connecting to the network. Looking back at our logs, the issue started at 7:18am and was resolved by 11:03am.
Communications and Advocacy:
● We filed a third submission to the CRTC 2023-56 Review of the wholesale high-speed access service framework on October 16. We didn’t end up asking members to submit comments to us or the Commission on our behalf. The intervention is available on the CRTC website and here:
https://www.ncf.ca/en/documents/110/NCFintervention-CRTC2023-56-2-20231016.pdf
● We are currently working on replies to the last round of interventions, due Nov. 20/23.
● Thanks to support from the Ontario Trillium Foundation and the Investment Readiness Program,
offered through the Ottawa Community Foundation, we have been continuing to work on developing
our plans for a Community WiFi Network in partnership with Ottawa Community Housing.
● Using data from the Neighbourhood Equity Index, we have identified Vanier, Overbrook and Sandy Hills as some of the communities facing the highest levels of inequity in the city. Given this, we are holding a Community info Session about a potential Community WiFi Network on November 30th 2:00-3:30pm at 251 Donald St, an Ottawa Community Housing tower block that could serve as one of the WiFi hosts.
Motion: To approve the consent agenda.
Proposer: Steve Fanjoy (gd782)
Seconder: Chris Taylor (fs180)
The motion was carried.
- Strategic Discussion: (60 minutes)
- CIRA update (Shelley Robinson and Andrew Martey Asare)
This item was conducted in-camera.
- Strategic Planning Roadmap Update for Q4 2023 and Q4 2024 (Shelley Robinson)
This item was conducted in-camera.
- Date of Next Meeting _________
The next Board meeting was anticipated to be December 12th, 2023 but was subsequently rescheduled to January 16th 2023: Hybrid, electronic and in-person at NCF office.
- Standing agenda item for discussion without staff and review (15 minutes)
- Discussion item (Anis Hanna)
This item was conducted in-camera.
Motion: To move out of camera.
Proposer: Peter MacKinnon (fr198)
Seconder: Graeme Beckett (aw958)
The motion was carried.