SPC Awards New Telecommunications Contract to Granite Government Solutions
The Suburban Purchasing Cooperative (SPC) is pleased to announce the award of Telecommunications Services Contract (#205) to Granite Government Solutions, Quincy, MA for one year with four possible, one-year contract extensions. The contract is effective December 1, 2021 through November 30, 2022.
Granite is a $1.65 billion dollar corporation that provides voice, data and other related communications products and services to multi-location businesses and governmental agencies throughout the United States and Canada. Granite furnishes services to more than two-thirds of the Fortune 100 companies in the United States, and 1.75 million voice and data lines under management. It is a privately held company, with no outside investors and has zero debt.
Granite will help simplify and manage local and long-distance phone services with a single point of contact and one invoice for all locations. Granite provides a full range of advanced communications solutions, including Internet Access, SD-WAN, Wireless WAN, Hosted PBX, SIP Trunking, Mobile Voice and Data, Mobile Device Management, Managed Security and Network Integration, all in a single, seamless solution.
Granite just signed an agreement with AT&T to lock in POTS lines for 3 years and they also have their own patented EPIK replacement solution as noted in their press release on the business wire link at EPIK POTS replacement solution. Granite Customer Service is available 24/7/365 by calling 866-847-5500 where you will always receive a human response.
Granite’s public sector contracts include:
Virginia Broadband Services Contract
Arkansas Broadband Services Contract
South Carolina Local Telecommunications Services Contract
New Mexico Local Exchange Carrier Service
New Mexico Long Distance Service
Oklahoma Telecommunications Services
Louisiana Long Distance Services
Vermont Telecommunications Services
Illinois Ethernet Services
South Carolina Ethernet Services
US Educational Technology Purchasing Alliance (USETPA) Approved Vendor
Pennsylvania Department of General Services COSTARS Approved Vendor
State of Louisiana State Implementation Plan (SIP)
State of New York
NCPA
State of California Multiple Award Schedules (CMAS)'
In the meantime, the SPC/Peerless Network (formerly Call One) second contract extension (Contract #188) remains in effect until May 31, 2022, unless either party terminates the Agreement upon sixty (60) days prior written notice to the other party. Peerless will continue to provide services to SPC members under the terms of their individual customer agreements, so the SPC shall continue to support our members by keeping the Peerless contract in effect.
We look forward to rolling out the new Telecommunications Contract with Granite Government Solutions and will soon provide additional information. Granite Senior Sales Executive for Illinois Frank Ventrella will present an overview of the new program and their services at the January 12th NWMC Board Meeting.
For questions or additional information, please contact staff or Senior Sales Executive – IL Government & Education Frank Ventrella, 630-649-0823 or FVentrella@granitenet.com. For questions about your existing Peerless agreement, please continue to contact your Peerless sales representative, or Director of Account Management Alex Sondgerath, 312-681-8313 or asondgerath@peerlessnetwork.com.
Peerless Network’s/Call One Imminent Demise of POTS Lines Announcement Update
The SPC was recently informed that Telecommunications Program provider Peerless Network (formerly Call One) was notified by one of their vendors that certain telecommunications services will be discontinued.
These services are for Windstream Plain Old Telephone Services (POTS) lines. POTS are an analog voice transmission phone system delivered over copper infrastructure and are obsolete. Windstream is scheduled to decommission its POTS lines on March 1, 2022. AT&T and Verizon will also decommission their POTS lines, although they have yet to announce termination dates.
If your community uses the SPC Telecommunications Contract (#188) with Peerless and have POTS lines, you may have received an email from them dated November 19 with the subject "Important Information Regarding Your Telephone Service" that is now posted on the SPC website. The message included a list of customer POTS lines and a request to identify if any of these lines are being used for specialty purposes like alarms, elevators, exterior call boxes or fax machines and respond back to them at conversions@peerlessnetwork.com.These types of lines require special update hardware so it’s critical they are identified properly.
Based on the response to their first email, they sent follow up correspondence, also posted on the SPC website, outlining the process for them to mail an Analog Telephone Adaptor (ATA) associated with the address they have on file for that POTS line. This could be a problem if the address associated with the line is unmanned or underground, so it is important to verify the address and contact person to whom Peerless should send the adaptors.
Staff still has not received detailed information requested from Peerless including POTS lines (by carrier) as well as information on the ATA kits that were previously sent by them including date, tracking #, recipient names and mailing addresses. It is Peerless’ responsibility to notify all SPC contract participants and provide all necessary information pertaining to POTS lines and plans for the transition along with the customer service or sales contacts who will be working with them to implement the changes. We will notify program participants as soon as we have additional information.
For questions or additional information, please contact staff or Peerless Network Director of Account Management Alex Sondgerath, 312-681-8313 or asondgerath@peerlessnetwork.com.
SPC Announces 2022 Ambulance Prices
The SPC Governing Board has approved the fourth and final, one-year contract extension on the 2022 Type I Additional Duty Ambulance Contract (#174) to Foster Coach Sales, Inc., of Sterling, IL. The contract runs from January 1, 2022, through December 31, 2022, and includes price increases as shown below due to increases in material prices.
In addition, price increases on the 2022 Type III Medium Duty Ambulance Contract (#177) have also been approved for Foster Coach Sales on their current contract extension which is good through July 16, 2022. Find full product information for Contract #174 here.
Please note that Foster Coach still offers the following prepayment discounts on the Type III Medium Duty Ambulance to all SPC contract participants based on the total cost of the new ambulance:
Ford E-450 discount: $4,338.00
Chevrolet G-4500 discount: $4,449.99
For questions or additional information, please contact staff or P.J. Foster, 630-470-5687 (cell), 815-625-3276 ext. 7(office), or pj@fostercoach.com.
Comments