The village of Buffalo Grove had a 12-year-old telecommunications network upgraded recently, taking the village’s phone system offline during a 12-hour period starting Feb. 5.
In an electronic village newsletter where the project was announced, village officials said the 911 system would not be impacted. The “extensive network upgrades” work was scheduled to be done between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. that Saturday.
“We were able to complete the project within the maintenance window,” said Brett Robinson, administrative services director for the village, who oversees the information technology department/contract and is also in charge of procurements and records for the clerk’s office.
“We completed most of the work in the morning but there’s always those little things that you didn’t expect to crop up. That took the rest of the allotted time but we knew that was going to happen.
Robinson said since the work took place on a Saturday, most of the offices for most departments were closed, minimizing impact to residents.
He said the village contracted with InterDev, which is headquartered in the Atlanta area and has an office in Glenview, to complete the project.
InterDev provides “professional information technology services and support to government, education, business and nonprofit organizations,” according to its website, with a primary focus on managed information technology services.
Robinson said the company performs the village’s regular IT services
“We were able to do a major update within the time frame that we allotted,” he said of the telecommunications maintenance project.
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Robinson said old equipment was replaced with new equipment.
“It was just something that needed to be done,” he said.
According to the electronic newsletter “an aging core network and routing infrastructure across village properties” were to be replaced.
“Computer technology has improved and changed very rapidly so when it gets to be 12 years old it’s very old,” Robinson said.
Robinson said the maintenance work done Saturday was the first of its magnitude for the village. He said there was nothing “critically wrong” with the infrastructure prior to the upgrade, there were just limits on how fast the computer network operated.
“Obviously anything that’s that old, at some point it’s just safer to have modern equipment. So that’s why we made the change,” he said. “It provides us with a new robust core network at much higher speeds. It’s internet protocol-based traffic – computers, your phones as well as wireless systems.”
While the work was being done, a temporary phone number was available for residents and businesses who wanted to call for non-emergency village assistance and services.
According to Robinson, the next IT maintenance project – after upgrading the core network – could be several months away.
“This was the backbone. The next steps are we will be looking to do edge equipment, which is equipment in departments,” he said.
Robinson explained that Village Hall and the police department would be part of the edge equipment work.
He said supply chain timing could impact the start of the next maintenance project.
“It could be the end of this year. When that equipment arrives dictates when that project will get done,” Robinson said.