Courthouse loses telephone service

Courthouse telephones went into a sixth business day of no service Tuesday morning with negotiations near complete on getting a new provider via the internet. Lance Bishop, county information technology director for the past six months, said he is working with Granite Net to convert to the new system which will be delivered via fiber optic lines which already provide internet service for the county's computers.

Bishop said he has been considering a change of providers for several months.

Bishop said the failure of the courthouse service last week evolved from a request to Century Link to delete some of the obsolete trunk lines on the county's account. He said Century's move to delete the unwanted circuits somehow impacted other circuits which served the courthouse telephone system.

Amongst the service cuts were two trunk services which provide 24 channels each. One trunk provides service from the courthouse and one serves calls going into the courthouse.

The county has approximately 375 different phone numbers to take calls, and they are on approximately 250 telephones.

Bishop has been working to get the first of 30 SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) trunk lines for the county via the internet.

He noted that amount of trunks will be more than the county currently needs, but it will allow for increased demand in the future.

They hoped to have one trunk line in Friday with a single number and an automatic attendant to link to offices which are selected by caller. The single line auto access line was still not in place as of Tuesday afternoon.

Bishop said call records show the courthouse calls normally, at one time, can fill 12 to 15 of the 24 channels.

Conversion to the Granite system is expected to save the county 60 to 75 percent on its monthly telephone bill which now ranges between $3,500 and $4,000.