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Gunter moves to replace phone system after hacks; staff says new contract will save about $1,100 a month
Summary
Following repeated phone‑system hacks and robo‑call attacks, council agreed to proceed with a three‑year contract proposal to move phone service to a VoIP solution through GCEC; staff said the proposed arrangement would replace phones and reduce costs by about $1,100 monthly while staff will preserve hard lines for fire alarms and fax as needed.
Council reviewed a proposed three‑year contract to replace the city’s phone system after staff reported multiple incidents, including robo‑call intrusions and social‑engineering attacks on the phone account. Staff said the Grayson‑Collin Electric Cooperative (GCEC) proposal would migrate the city’s numbers to a voice‑over‑IP solution, replace handsets as part of the contract and include monthly payments that incorporate hardware costs.
“We're actually saving 1,100 a month,” the Chair said when describing the financial terms staff reported, adding that the contract includes hardware payments spread across the monthly fee and required no money up front. Council asked about reliability and emergency lines; staff recommended retaining some copper hard lines and battery backups for fire‑alarm monitoring and fax lines and said FirstNet or fiber would be desirable failover options.
Council members cautioned that voice‑over‑IP is latency‑sensitive and that a fiber connection would be the most reliable long‑term solution, but staff said the GCEC plan includes backup components and that the short‑term solution will improve current vulnerabilities. The council agreed to move forward with the vendor engagement and to finalize contract details.
