Teleconferencing Project Correspondence

 July 20, 1998

 

TO:

County Superintendents, Chief Business Officials, and

 

FCMAT County Contact Persons 

 

 

FROM: 

Bill Luehe, Director

 

FCMAT Professional Development

 

 

SUBJECT:

FCMAT Teleconferencing Update

I hope that you are having an enjoyable summer. Although we haven't mailed a "Teleconferencing Update" to you in a while, it has not been because of a lack of project activity. Unfortunately, not all of the activity has been in the direction of moving our project forward at a consistent pace. It seems that we frequently send out an update only to have the course of events change immediately after. With that risk understood, here is an update regarding the Teleconferencing Project.

The original subcontractor selected by COMSAT RSI (the project's primary contractor) to perform the site installations was relieved of his contract in late November. A series of extensive negotiations followed and COMSAT RSI selected a new installation subcontractor in May. After ten installations, a mutually agreed upon (between COMSAT RSI and the contractor) termination of the second subcontractor ensued. COMSAT RSI's approach is now changing from using a single contractor to do the installations statewide, to selecting new installation subcontractors on a regional or geographic basis. We are in hopes that this will be a more successful approach to completing the project.

To date, here is what is happening/planned:

  • In Southern California, COMSAT RSI has engaged the services of Full Spectrum to do the installations at the following COEs - Riverside, Orange, San Diego, Ventura, and Inyo. The contact person at Full Spectrum is Chris Herrington and he can be reached at 714-879-3789.

 
  • In Northern California, COMSAT RSI has contracted with HOMETECH to do installations at the following COEs - Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, and Sonoma. The contact person at HOMETECH is Kevin Sigler and he can be reached at 707-426-5811.

 
  • COMSAT RSI is currently working to enlist the services of an installer out of the Sacramento area to address the Central California sites that need to be completed.

 
  • COMSAT RSI currently has an engineer / quality control person in California to oversee installations at each of the COE sites and a second engineer will arrive next week. The installation contractors selected by COMSAT RSI will be responsible for the physical installation of the downlink equipment and the COMSAT RSI engineers will do the electronic connectivity and testing. The engineers from the Kern County Superintendent of Schools Office will then do the final testing and sign off for your system.

There have been 17 installations completed to date. Four (4) of those sites have been fully tested and are operational. The COMSAT RSI engineer(s) is currently working on the connectivity, sighting, and testing of those sites that have their dishes installed.

As the new installers begin their work, they will call to let you know what their work schedule is for your site.

If you have any questions or need further information regarding your site installation, please call me at 805-636-4614 or Larry Ciecalone at 805-636-4755. You can reach Al Fox, project director for COMSAT RSI, at 301-428-5067.

Again, thank you for your patience as we all work to bring the FCMAT Teleconferencing Project to completion.

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