Tech Provides City of Arnold with a Reliable, Affordable Voice Solution
COMPANY
The City of Arnold, Missouri
OVERVIEW
To upgrade the Arnold municipal government’s phone service, addressing hardware issues and eliminating the need to work with resellers to furnish equipment
SOLUTION
Tech Electronics outfitted the City of Arnold with our Mitel cloud-based Voice over IP (VoIP) solution.
OVERVIEW:
Arnold is a city in the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area that is home to over 21,000 residents. Arnold’s city departments previously relied on three on-premise phone systems, and technical support through a maintenance contract. The city dealt with repeated hardware issues, which they resolved by searching for and purchasing refurbished equipment to replace failing devices. Eventually the hardware failures became frequent and long-lasting enough that continuing under those conditions was unviable.
In addition to more reliable hardware and eliminating the need to work with resellers, the city had several other requirements for a potential solution. The solution needed to be future-proof and scalable, with view to future upgrades, integrations and expansions. Resiliency measures like off-site recovery and redundancy were also a priority. Additionally, as this system is used for essential functions like police response, the implementation process needed to be smooth and minimize downtime.
SOLUTION:
Tech Electronics migrated the City of Arnold’s phone service to a cloud-based VoIP system, leveraging the city’s dedicated fiber connection. This resolved the hardware issues entirely, allowing Arnold to operate on the latest technology, while also decreasing reliance on Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) lines.
Extensive planning and meetings between City of Arnold IT Manager Deion Christopher and Tech Electronics Customer Base Account Manager Safija Perotti allowed for a seamless migration process. Total downtime amounted to only a few minutes throughout the entire process.
“Migrating Arnold’s phones to a hosted cloud system was a logical choice, because it shifts the burdens of owning the technology away from the customer, from implementation onward,” said Safija Perotti. “We had regular meetings, kept a spreadsheet of issues and action items and embedded a technician on site for the entire process as well. We knew a smooth implementation was a top priority for them, and I wanted to make sure they knew it was a top priority for us as well.”
In addition, the solution demonstrated its value in the months following the initial COVID-19 outbreak, numerous employees shifted to a remote-work environment, necessitating they be able to access their “office” phones from home. Fortunately, the cloud solution allows employees to bring their phones home with the aid of Power Over Ethernet (POE) adapters, as well as twin their office phones directly to their cellular devices. This, along with video conferencing through Mitel’s MiCollab platform, allowed Arnold’s employees to navigate the disruptions of the pandemic while working at full capacity.
CUSTOMER FEEDBACK:
“In my twenty-three years in the IT field, Tech Electronics’ hosted, cloud-based phone system migration and implementation solution was the smoothest project I have ever participated in. Every deliverable was on time, on budget, and met or exceeded my expectations.
I believe the success of this project was due in part to the Networking and Help Desk staff at Tech Electronics. In addition, my Account Manager continues to reach out to me on a monthly basis to ensure my happiness with the hosted solution.”
-Deion Christopher, Information Technology Manager, City of Arnold
