Capital Expenditure Committee Reviews Plans for Major Upgrades to Town Communication Systems

By Bob Dorer

At the December 3 meeting of the Capital Expenditure Committee, Taissir Aleni, Director of Facilities, presented the anticipated capital needs of the town for the upcoming fiscal year.

The details of the projects were presented in the context of the town’s six year capital needs tracking system. Of particular note is the anticipated need for the town to replace its aging and difficult to maintain legacy phone systems with the more current voice over internet protocol (VOIP) based phones.

The total estimated cost for these replacements is $378,000. Recently, the legacy phone system at the library failed and had to be replaced with a VOIP system for approximately $15,000. All the new phone systems planned for the Town Hall / Town Center, DPW, Fire, Police, and schools’ facilities (nine different buildings in all) will be fully compatible with each other and with the town’s other communication upgrades currently under consideration.

The new systems will allow for additional flexibility and functionality while reducing communication costs. System maintenance monitoring capabilities will be more robust and the programing of phone numbers and locations more responsive. Significant savings will also be generated by avoiding the escalating maintenance and service costs of the old legacy systems.

In coordination with these phone system replacements, the capital plan outlines the completion of a town wide communications system during the time frame of FY 2016 to FY 2019. This new communications system would connect most town facilities and buildings with dedicated fiber optic lines and a few select microwave links where fiber connections are not feasible.

Aleni anticipates that such a system would result in savings to the town’s overall communication costs and provide increased communication functionality. For example, these new, town owned, high capacity links, would provide the flexibility of live local Bedford TV Community Access Television (BCAT) cable broadcasts from any connected town facility on the town’s Comcast or Verizon local cable channels.

If you are interested in understanding more about VOIP or modern telephone systems and the various terminologies, try any one of the following links