County approves backup internet, new monitoring software and firewall upgrades for 9-1-1

St. Joseph County commissioners on July 29 approved a set of technology upgrades for the countys public-safety answering point (PSAP), including a replacement backup internet service, a consolidated remote monitoring and mobile-device-management software subscription and new firewall hardware.

The board voted unanimously to replace the current Comcast backup link with a Surf Internet subscription, to approve a NinjaOne ("Ninja 1" in the record) subscription agreement subject to final legal review by county counsel, and to purchase firewall equipment for the primary and backup PSAP centers. The firewall purchase was presented as negotiated down from an earlier quote: the packet shows a negotiated price of $128,000.48; the board approved the purchase by unanimous vote.

Nick Robold, representing PSAP operations, said the county's primary internet service is AT&T Enterprise and the county has historically used Comcast as backup; the requested Surf Internet service would replace Comcast as the backup link. Robold and Sal Parisi of the St. Joseph County 9-1-1 center said Surf provides a service-level guarantee (presented in the packet as 99.99% uptime) and outage monitoring features not available with the current backup provider.

Parisi told the board that if Surf fails to meet the guaranteed uptime (the packet mentions a four-hour threshold for credit), the county may seek an account credit for downtime. "If there's a greater outage than I believe the 4 hours that they guarantee, we are allowed to ask for an account credit for the time that we were down," Parisi said.

Commissioners asked staff to confirm the contractual remedies tied to Surf's guarantees; staff agreed to pursue that clarification. The NinjaOne subscription was approved "subject to Phil's final review," per the motion after county legal counsel requested minor venue/choice-of-law edits; staff said the vendor agreed to the requested changes and the county's counsel would complete review before final execution.

For the firewall procurement, county staff said the equipment replaces hardware approaching seven years in service and that new firewalls are critical for the security of the primary and backup centers. Staff reported multiple quotes in the packet and a negotiated reduction from an earlier $201,000 figure to roughly $128,000.

Ending: County staff will finalize contract language for NinjaOne with legal counsel and will proceed with the Surf Internet and firewall purchases as approved.