Noting that telephones are an important tool and a connection to the public, the Great Bend City Council Tuesday night approved a bid from Nex-Tech for $66,410.40 for a new city phone system.
“As the city continues to upgrade technology, we are finding the current phone system is quickly becoming outdated and unable to grow with business,” said Network Administrator James Cell. “I’ve been working on this for a while,” upgrading computers, printers and servers before moving on to the phones.
The phones themselves are no longer made, which requires the city to either obtain refurbished phones or use phones that have been sitting on the shelf for several years. The fact that not all city offices are on the same system, such as the airport, makes things worse, he said.
The current phone system is unable to do conferencing or voice mail forwarding without adding new cards and licensing, which takes away the flexibility and availability for certain call options, he said. It is also vulnerable to outages, so weather will disrupt service (which happens often).
And, “it has no maintenance contract so anytime we need adjustments or replacements we are paying a $400 travel fee on top of $175 an hour rate for service,” Cell said.
The current phone system can’t support remote call capability if office is shut down due to COVID or a disaster, Cell said. Now, several departments are on different phone connections.
The city needs the ability to seamlessly setup a user to work from home or another location if unable to report to the office location. And, they need the ability to add a phone line that isn’t connected to an office phone. The current system is unable to do that.
A cloud phone system offers many features that they are currently lacking and gives employees anytime, anywhere access via a smartphone, desk phone or softphone (software for making calls over the Internet using a computer rather than dedicated hardware), he said. Cloud fax would remove need for analog lines and create savings because faxes would then come in via cloud bases to be accessed from any location.
It would improve call quality and reliability, as well as the ability to offer on-hold music and play announcements while callers are waiting. And, it is important in terms of improved customer service.
In addition, a cloud-based communications system is likely to be unaffected by outside factors such as severe weather or other issues that may keep employees from getting to the office, allowing the city to maintain a consistent presence and keep things running smoothly. “A phone system gets taken for granted,” he said. “It is what makes or breaks productivity within a department or organization; it is how we communicate internally and externally.”
The city received several bids and the low bid was from Nex-Tech. The monthly phone service cost would increase approximately by $345 per month, but Cell said that will likely be much lower.
Cell said the city has $40,000 set aside for the project.
