Aurora committee approves five-year Avaya cloud telephony contract to replace aging T1/Cisco system

The Aurora Finance Committee voted 5-0 on Sept. 26 to authorize a 60-month telephony subscription and equipment purchase (item 24-0684), approving a contract proposal to move the city from aging Cisco and T1 circuits to an Avaya Cloud Office voice-over-IP platform. The packet listed a purchase price of $775,748.40 plus a 3% contingency.

Jeff Anderson, deputy chief information officer, said the city's existing Cisco telephony (installed 2014) and two T1 circuits limit concurrent inbound and outbound calls (48) and do not scale to peak demand. "A loss in one of those T1 lines reduces our number of concurrent calls to 24," Anderson said, noting that COVID-era remote work exposed the constraints and that forwarding calls today consumes multiple call paths. The proposed Avaya cloud solution would route calls over the city's existing internet egress points, keep inter-building calls on the city network and enable burstable call paths that handle spikes in demand.

Anderson and a vendor representative explained features including integration with Microsoft Teams, the ability for employees to self-manage where calls ring (desk, laptop, cell), and consolidated conferencing/dial-in functionality. Anderson summarized the financial case, saying the Avaya option showed materially lower multi-year costs compared with upgrading Cisco gear and paying for unsupported equipment and circuits.

Committee members asked technical and operational questions about forwarding, Teams integration and the learning curve. Anderson acknowledged a training period but said the solution would offer greater flexibility and resilience. A motion by Alderman Bay, seconded by Alderman Worman, passed 5-0 to approve the contract.

The city excluded 9-1-1 PSAP lines, cellular blue-light phones and certain POTS lines (elevators, EOC) from the scope and will retain those dedicated circuits.