City Council
	Agenda Request
Agenda Of:	April 15, 2008	Agenda Request No:		IV C
Initiated By:	Sharlett Chowning, director of information technology	Responsible Department:		Information Technology
Presented By:	sharlett chowning, director of information technology	Department Head:		sharlett chowning, director of information technology
		Additional Department. Head (s):		n/a
Subject / Proceeding:	authorize purchase of telecommunications subscriber services
Exhibits:	ATT DIR Contract Verizon DIR Contract
Clearances			Approval
Legal:	N/a		Executive Director:	n/a
Purchasing:	Charles Eads, Interim Purchasing Manager		Asst. City Manager:	karen daly
Budget:	bryan guinn, budget manager		City Manager:	Allen Bogard/for AB
Budget
Expenditure Required: $			250,000.00
Current Budget: $			250,000.00
Additional Funding: $			NA
Recommended Action
Approve the purchase of cellular equipment and cellular minutes through Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility.
Executive Summary
To date, the City's cellular minutes have been purchased through Verizon or Sprint-Nextel via the TEXAS 2000 State of Texas Cooperative Purchasing Program (Contract Nos. DIR-SDD-604 and DIR-SDD-611). The City currently has 92 Verizon EVDO cellular data cards, 65% of which are dedicated to public safety. The City also has 215 cellular phones and 49 Blackberries using Sprint-Nextel service. At this time the staff is recommending that the City purchase cellular minutes and equipment through the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) contract utilizing Verizon and AT&T Mobility. The State of Texas requests competitive offers from cell phone service providers and evaluates the responses based on cost and value, ability to respond to service requests in a timely manner, experience and technical merit, statewide coverage, and satisfactory reference. The State has negotiated contracts with telecommunication vendors using the statewide buying power. DIR is offering pricing comparable with Sprint-Nextel for AT&T cellular phones and Blackberry service. The City has been experiencing accessibility and performance issues with Sprint-Nextel, as well as multiple changes in their billing and customer service departments that have required excessive support from the City to manage these devices. AT&T has a greater coverage area in Sugar Land and has agreed to take a more active role in the management of the City communications devices. Sprint-Nextel has been unable to provide assistance with several technology initiatives desired by the City, including the Police Mobile Command Vehicle communications and call boxes in the parks. AT&T and Sprint-Nextel are the major vendors offering a push-to-talk feature on all cellular devices used by the City. It was determined that this feature is essential to the City’s emergency response systems. Verizon was chosen as the vendor of choice for EVDO cellular data cards because of the interoperability with other regional law enforcement agencies in the area. The funding for this service comes from the operating budgets of the departments using the devices and has previously been approved by Council within the budget process. The estimated expenditure for a full 12 months of service is expected to be approximately $58,956.00 for existing cellular data service and $145,576.00 for cellular and blackberry service. With the new Public Safety Mobile Data Terminals going on-line, the City will be converting this equipment from RDLAP to cellular. This will increase the EVDO service by fifty-two (52) internal devices over the coming year at an increased cost of $31,200.00 per year. This conversion was approved during the December 4, 2007 Council meeting. Staff recommends contracting with Verizon and AT&T Mobility for mobile voice, data and equipment using the State of Texas DIR contracts available in the amount of $250,000 per year for one year with three additional one year options.
Exhibits

Exhibit A: ATT Mobility DIR Contract Number DIR-SDD-597

Exhibit B: Verizon Wireless DIR Contract Number DIR-SDD-604