Physical Services Committee advances budget amendment to cover legacy phone-system bills during VoIP transition

The Montgomery County Legislature—s Physical Services Committee advanced a resolution amending the 2025 operating budget for data processing to cover charges from the county—s legacy Frontier phone system while the county completes a transition to a voice-over-IP (VoIP) phone system.

Why it matters: committee discussion said a miscommunication during last year—s budget process removed funds that were still needed to pay Frontier bills for January and February and for a small number of remaining lines. Committee members said the county is incurring higher-than-usual charges while the provider noticed the migration away from legacy equipment.

Dan, identified in the meeting record only by his first name, explained the situation: the county implemented a new SIP-based VoIP system (using two vendors for redundancy) but still has lingering Frontier lines and bills that must be paid during the migration. He said the courthouse remained on the old system longer because it is a state-run facility and a move to the state phone system did not occur in time.

Dan said the county is paying about $9,000 to $10,000 per month for the old system while the transition finishes and that the requested carryover will cover January, February and remaining small line charges. He described the legacy system as having increasing costs starting around October or November, which contributed to the currently elevated monthly amount.

Committee members asked whether the new system was separate in the budget; Dan said yes: "it's not Frontier anymore. It's voice over IP ... it's a SIP system," and that the county uses two vendors (Edge and Granite) for redundancy.

The committee moved the resolution to the full Legislature for consideration. The record shows committee discussion lasting several minutes with technical clarifications from Dan and no recorded roll-call tally in the audio file.