City jacking up technology for Internet phone system|[01/23/07]

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, January 23, 2007

People talking by phone with Vicksburg employees may not hear the difference, but their voices will be traveling over wires previously used only by computers.

City Hall is using a technology that converts traditional phone signals to Internet signals and back again to create a multiple-building network of its own, with more flexibility and at lower cost, said Billy Gordon, information-technology director.

The technology that is making the conversion is called voice-over Internet protocol. The software the city is using to accomplish it, called Asterisk, is available free on the Internet and is being run on a city hub computer. It’s allowing a consolidation of nearly all voice and data traffic into a single connection with the outside phone network.

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&#8220It converts it from analog to digital and it goes through the network,” Gordon said.

BellSouth, now a part of AT&T, is the city’s provider of phone service. Fewer than half of all city phones have been placed on the voice-over network, but BellSouth bills have begun to fall. The two most-recent BellSouth bills, for November and December, were $9,166 and $8,329 respectively, a reduction of $837.

&#8220It will take more conversions to see the difference,” Strategic Planner Paul Rogers said.

The new system requires a larger-capacity connection between the city’s computer system and the commercial provider. That connection is being made by a high-speed Internet line provided by GulfPines Communications of Bay Springs, near Hattiesburg.

The GulfPines connection, called a T1 line, has been in place for about nine months and costs about $700 to $800 a month, Gordon said. The conversion also required a purchase of a new server computer to be used as the system’s hub at a cost of about $2,000 to $2,500, Gordon said.

The new system requires each phone to be provided with electricity, which is provided with the signal in traditional-phone connections. For that reason, most departments are retaining at least one or two traditional phone lines in case of power outages, Gordon said.

He said some people using the system &#8220might notice a little echo” but that to him conversations using the new system also &#8220sound calmer,” with less background noise.

&#8220If we didn’t tell them that it was something different, they may not even know it, our users,” Gordon said.

Most desk phones in the new system are or will be connected &#8220in-line” with computers, Gordon said. The way phones are connected shortens the time it takes to connect or move and reconnect phones from up to a week to as short as half an hour, Gordon said.

Phones at City Hall and City Hall Annex were connected to the new network as of last week, said Bill Ford, also of the city’s IT department.

With the change comes added features such as a direct number for each phone, the ability to check voice-mailboxes using the Internet and the ability to have calls forwarded to their cell phones when workers are away from their desks, Ford said.

Next in line to be connected are the Vicksburg Water and Gas Administration on Drummond Street, Planning Department on South Street and the city garage near China Street. Ford said the buildings on the city’s fiber-optic network were being connected first.

&#8220The police department’s a whole different animal,” Ford said, adding that a separate phone server will probably eventually be installed for it. Phone needs at the fire department also remain to be examined but a hybrid system will probably be created there, Ford added.

GulfPines was selected from among more than six companies that bid on the T1 service, Gordon said.

Other major projects on the city IT department’s agenda for this year are installation and testing of devices that allow centralized monitoring of the positions of city vehicles and the addition to the city’s Web site of searchable access to some city financial information.

The city’s budget for information services for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 31 is $610,510, down $99,790 from the prior fiscal year’s budget, $710,300. Actual expenditures for FY 2006 have not been published.