Tuesday evening the Bourbon Town Council considered a quote from Surf Broadband to switch the town’s phone service to VOIP (voice over internet protocol). The quote was for $5,538.49 which also includes new telephones.
Town Council President Ward Byers said they conducted a cost analysis and found the contract price to be less than the annual phone bill for the Town of Bourbon. The additional upfront cost will be recouped by the town in the first year.
There was a question on the reliability of service from internet phones from board member Les McFarland. Town Clerk Kim Berger said, “We have Frontier now so whenever we have a very heavy rain or anything like that our phones don’t basically hardly work. They are totally static. In fact here, a couple weeks ago we had a really heavy rain and we had an issue with the police line that went out.” Surf told them with the high-speed internet they shouldn’t experience many issues.
Board member Terry Clemens asked when the switch-over could happen and Berger said Surf ran their internet lines last week and the extension number have been set over. Once the city is hooked up, in September Hyperwave will come and change over the phone system.
The Bourbon Town Council approved the proposal with a 3 – 0 vote. Bourbon
