During and after hurricane Florence one of the obstacles the town faced was with communications. Not being able to communicate internally as well as externally created time delays in relaying critical information to our staff and citizens.

Some steps have already been taken to improve this issue such as the migration of town email from an on-site server to a cloud based system.This allows emails to be sent and received when there is no power or internet connection for the server. 

The next step to help eliminate this problem in the future is the migration to fiber based internet connection. A fiber connection receives a quicker response time in the event there is an outage, but often fiber connection continue when cable connections are lost due to inclement weather. A fiber connection will also provide better daily internet connection, since the bandwidth is not shared as the current residential service is, but dedicated to town facilities. 

In addition to better connection, fiber also offers the opportunity for all town facilities to be connected on a Wide Area Network (WAN). This will allow for internal document sharing, intranet, direct access to the financial system server,  as well as 4-digit extension dialing across all departments and town facilities.

Installation of fiber will take about 90 days.

This is a 5 year agreement with a cost of $2400.00 per month.

Staff met with Spectrum and Centurylink. It was determined that Spectrum offered the lowest price as well as best solution for our needs.