03-21-2023 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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AGENDA ITEM Prepared By: RJO Reviewed By: ND Approved By: 1. Purpose. The purpose of the action item is to update the Council on changes to the City’s phone carrier. 2. Background. The City currently contracts with Allstream to provide phone services to the City Hall complex. Allstream is a reseller of Century Link lines. Until the last month the service had been very good. Recently, we have experience multiple phone system failures that have lasted longer than a day. Working with Allstream to restore phone service has been frustrating at best and staff is moving to a new carrier. Concurrent with the provider change, we will be implementing a Session Initiation Protocal (SIP) over our Hennepin County Fiber connection. Because SIP runs on fiber instead of legacy copper, the issues that have caused our recent outages will be eliminated. This is a change that the city would be required to make in the near future as telecoms continue to reduce their investments in copper infrastructure. In discussing options with vendors (Nova, Lumen (Century Link), Allstream and LOGIS), SIP is the unanimous recommendation for the city. We have relationship with all of the vendors and have requested quotes from Nova, Lumen, and LOGIS. The quote from LOGIS, while providing the most robust service and options, was for $25,000 - $30,000 annually. The other two quotes were around $2,400 annually. Staff has decided that between Nova and Lumen; Nova has been the most responsive. They are also the vendor for our internal phone system so we will be able to eliminate a vender. This is helpful to avoid issues of responsibility when problems arise. For example, Allstream is our provider but Lumen maintains the lines. We can’t work directly with Lumen to fix the problem, and Allstream’s answer has been we’ve sent the repair request to Lumen. The result has been that the city’s phones have been down for 2+ days twice in the last month. Our solution is to eliminate Allstream and Lumen altogether and use our existing Nova phone system over the Hennepin County Fiber line. This will save around $5,000 on the phone service and allow the elimination of both the Lunen copper and fiber line saving another $12,000 annually. 3. Cost. This will be a reduction of currently budgeted expenditures of approximately $17,000. 4. Funding. The 2023 Operating budget includes funding for phone service. COUNCIL ACTION REQUESTED Informational purposes only, no action is required. Item No.: 14 Date: March 21, 2023 Item Description: Change in Phone Service Provider Presenter: Ron Olson Finance Director Agenda Section: Finance Director’s Report