COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) – The Coldwater Board of Public Utilities Board of Directors approved a recommendation on Wednesday night to change the company that provides the utility’s after hours help desk support to Aspen Smart Networks for the next five years.
National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative has been handling customer inquiries from 11:30 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. since June of 2020.
The original agreement with NRTC expired in May of 2023. It renewed automatically for the first year before it went to a month-to-month agreement.
During that time, the staff considered hiring additional employees to bring this service back in-house but it was felt that would not be the fiscally sound thing to do at this time.
It was eventually decided to request quotes from qualified vendors. Aspen’s quote of $3,210 a month was about $400 less than the second lowest quote. Aspen also offered a five year contract compared to three years from NRTC.
In other business, the board approved the purchase of a spare fiber node cabinet from Aspen Smart Networks for $84,605 following the recent internet outage.
Such a cabinet houses electronics, fiber optic patch panels, a battery backup, the fiber optic cable as well as other components.
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