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Item C01 BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY Meeting Date: 9/16/09 Division: TECHNICAL SERVICES Bulk Item: Yes X No - Department: TECHNICAL SERVICES Staff Contact PersonlPhone #: Lisa Druckemiller , 295-5100 AGENDA ITEM WORDING: Approval to purchase from AT&T Quote # 321270739 for telephone equipment and services to upgrade the telephone switching systems in the Marathon Government Center and the Plantation Key Courthouse to a highly available core switch and to upgrade equipment for other smaller sites in Marathon. ITEM BACKGROUND: Monroe County has upgraded the phone switching systems in Key West and Plantation Key to the latest software revision and installed necessary equipment to support the latest technologies such as Voice over IP (VolP). This quotation is for the components necessary to upgrade phone equipment at several of our offices in Marathon to support V oIP and allow for the telephone switch in the Marathon Government Center to merge with the main switch in the Plantation Key Courthouse to form a highly available core switch. Furthermore, several locations will also have the necessary equipment for survivability if connectivity to the main telephone switch is lost. PREVIOUS RELEVANT BOCC ACTION: N/A CONTRACT/AGREEMENT CHANGES: N/A STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS: Approval. TOTAL COST:$114315.48 BUDGETED: Yes X No - COST TO COUNTY: $114315.48 SOURCE OF FUNDS: Ad Valorem REVENUE PRODUCING: Yes - No X AMOUNT PER MONTH _Year_ APPROVED BY: County Arty _ OMBIPurchasing _ Risk Management _ DOCUMENTA TION: Included X Not Required_ DISPOSITION: AGENDA ITEM # Revised 11/06 Summary Currently, Monroe County has an existing telephone service consisting of approximately 2000 telephone extensions throughout the County. We have been in the process of upgraded the telephone system to support newer switching technologies, IP trunking, and Voice over IP telephony (VoIP). Key West and Plantation Key have been upgraded within the last two years and the Murray Government Center was brought online in January of 2009 completely with VoIP phones. This purchase will upgrade Marathon to a highly available core switch and join it with the phone switch in Plantation Key to create a redundant system. This would improve the reliability of our phone service throughout the County. Staff recommends approval. Analysis Voice over IP is a technology that involves using the data network to handle telephone services instead of using separate copper lines resulting in costs savings to the County as the County doesn't have to maintain separate voice and data lines. It continues the trend of convergence between voice, data and video technologies. VoIP technologies break the voice data into discrete chunks of information and encapsulated inside a TCP lIP packets for transport over the data network. These packets are routed by our network switches and then reconstituted by the phones back into a voice stream at the telephone receiver. The County has 3 main Nortel telephone switching sites, located in Key West, Marathon and Plantation Key. Each of these sites handles a portion of our telephone lines at our offices throughout the County. The switches in Key West and Plantation Key have been upgraded to use IP trunking (a method to move traffic from switch to switch) and support VoIP telephone handsets which we have installed throughout most of our smaller offices throughoutthe County. Also, the Murray Nelson Government Center in Key Largo uses VoIP exclusively for the telephone system and is remotely controlled by the main switch in Plantation Key. This particular purchase will result in the upgrade to the telephone switch in Marathon to Nortel's latest software revision and joining it with the main switch in the Plantation Key Courthouse, providing for a highly available core. As such, if either switch failed, phone service would continue to operate as normal. Several ofthe smaller offices in the field will have equipment installed that will enable these offices to become survivable. If the wide area network connections fail, each site will still be able to dial out - however, 4 digit dialing will not be available. Installing this equipment will yield additional savings to Monroe County as Tech Services will be able to disconnect the T1 circuits connecting remote offices to our main telephone switches and remove several additional OSNC's as well. Each T1 circuit costs the county approximately $300 per month per connections and each OSNC costs the county approximately $170 per month. Furthermore, additional savings would result from future upgrades because they would only require a single purchase for both cores since they would be upgradeable as a single switch. Sole Sourcing It is necessary that the County acquire this telephone switching gear and software from AT&T as a sole source. First, the upgrades must be compatible with our existing telephone switch configuration. Furthermore, the expertise required to integrate this software and hardware with our existing telephone switches are such that only AT&T can deliver these services. Any other contractor would require a steep learning curve as to the details of our telephone switching configuration. The amount oftime necessary to complete this installation would greatly increase and cost the County significant additional monies. Staff Recommendation Technical Services recommends that the Monroe County Board of County Commissioners approve the purchase ofthe Telephone Equipment and Services contained in quote # 321270739 from AT&T.