Subject: [NEXTEL-1] City Drops Nextel & Others To Save $35,000.00 With Cingular

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 23:38:05 -0400

Story last updated at 6:54 a.m. Wednesday, October 15, 2003
City to save $35,000 with new phone plan
North Charleston action follows study
BY JAMES SCOTT
Of The Post and Courier Staff

North Charleston has unveiled a new mobile phone plan that cuts its annual costs
by more than $35,000 a year following a study by The Post and Courier that
revealed the city paid on average about $30 more per month per employee for cell
phones than neighboring cities.

City officials, who last year paid $91,899 to three cell phone providers for about
120 phones, will now pay $55,560, for 147 phones under a new deal relying strictly
on Cingular Wireless.

"The city is trying to manage the assets we have frugally and make sure we don't
spend money we don't need to," said Mayor Keith Summey.  "We want to give the best
service we can to the public for the lowest dollar possible."

Under the new plan, the city has 80,000 air-time minutes each month -- an average
of more than 500 minutes per employee -- to spread between the 147 different
department heads, police officers and field inspectors who are issued city phones
as part of the job. That is 5,000 minutes more than the previous city plan
offered.

The city also must pay a one-time $2,000 fee for phone accessories, such as belt
clips and protective pouches. Cingular included the phones for free as part of the
deal.

"The new plan has all the bells and whistles," Summey said Tuesday.  "We have
paging capabilities, text messaging and free mobile-to-mobile minutes."

The new plan comes on the heels of a study published in May by the newspaper that
found that North Charleston's monthly per-employee average of $62.43 last year was
almost $30 higher than other governments in Charleston County.
The lowest per-employee cost in the county, the study found, was the city of
Charleston, which spent $33.33 per month on each of its 300 city-issued phones
last year for a total of $120,000. Charleston County, which spent $177,838 on
phones, was not far behind in its per-employee rate, averaging $34.87 each month
for 425 employees.  Mount Pleasant spent $43.37 a month per employee on its 97
phones for a total year-end bill of $50,472.

Governments that spent the least on phones shared the common factor of relying on
one cell phone provider. North Charleston last year used three different
companies, Alltel, Verizon and Nextel.

Summey said the city's building department will continue using Nextel for about 10
phones with the goal of changing soon to the new plan.  Everyone else, he said,
was issued new phones and new numbers last week.

Summey, who credited the newspaper for pointing out the need to change, said
building operations Director Danny McJunkin spent a lot of time sifting through
different plans and rates. McJunkin even went into the field and tested various
phones to check on weak coverage areas in the roughly 60-square-mile city.

"As the telecommunications business gets more and more sophisticated, you have to
keep checking on everything," Summey said.  "So far the new plan is working fine."

City leaders were quick to commend the city staff and mayor for efforts to save
taxpayer money. Cell phones, many said, are necessary tools, like computers, for
helping city employees better deliver services.
"Communication is so very important in the city of North Charleston," said
Councilman Jesse Dove. "Cell phones speed up the process."

Councilwoman Phoebe Miller added that the cell-phone savings should be a wake-up
call for the city to find other areas to help trim unnecessary expenses.

"For city employees, cell phones are a necessary asset," she said.
http://www.charleston.net/stories/101503/loc_15phones.shtml

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