Council discusses plan to address recurring Frontier outages, looks at alternatives including Starlink and regional providers

Council discussed recurring outages on Frontier-provided services that affected several city facilities and some non-emergency administrative systems. City Administrator briefed council on meetings and outreach to other telecom providers and emphasized the need for a proactive plan rather than reactive fixes.

“We have gotten a lot of phone calls asking what the city is gonna do about it,” the City Administrator said, noting staff had filed complaints with the Federal Communications Commission and were pursuing meetings with vendors such as Mediacom and Western Iowa Networks. The administrator added that the college had successfully implemented Zoom phone technology as a model for a VoIP approach.

Council members stressed the importance of clarifying who has authority to negotiate and authorize changes—particularly where 911, airport and library services operate under different governance structures. One council member urged that IT and the relevant commissions (for example, the 911 board and airport commission) be formally involved to avoid duplicated efforts and to ensure any contractor or liaison has explicit authorization.

Staff will continue vendor outreach, report back on cost and integration implications (including dispatch and E911 integration), and propose an authorization plan to give clarity on roles and oversight. The Parks & Rec board will also consider cameras at Washington Park as part of a related discussion about park security and technology.