Baltimore city gov phones set for a big VoIP upgrade

The city comptroller's office is overseeing the process, which is moving steadily along. This week, a partnership between IBM and Avaya, was the only entity to meet the requirements for the city's RFP. The at once step is for the city to consider a pricing bid from them. So far, IBM/Avaya has estimated to the city that the new system - a Voice over Internet Protocal system, or VoIP -- will cost $7.6 million to implement, according to Comptroller Joan Pratt, who spoke with me on Wednesday.

The city has about 7,500 phones lines

I hear the city has about 7,500 phones lines. One insight into how the current system works: when daylight savings time occurred last weekend, city technicians how to go to each city building and change the time on a "key system unit" -- a central box used to reset the time on each phone in that particular building, according to Pratt.

With the new VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) system, a task like a time change across thousands of phones will be able to handled remotely, from one location, according to Pratt.

Interestingly, in 1995, the city upgraded its phone system -- consisting of 9,900 phones -- for $7.2 million. Here's the Baltimore Sun article about it.

In that article, the city touted the savings it would reap -- several milllion a year then -- from the next-new phone system. I'll try to find out if the city sees any projected savings this time around with the VoIP system.