This Request for Proposals (the “RFP”) is an invitation by the Corporation of the City of Port Colborne (the “City”) to prospective proponents to submit proposals for Hosted Telephony Services and Related Equipment, as further described in Section A of the RFP Particulars (Appendix B) (the “Deliverables”). 

The City is looking to migrate from a series of Mitel on-premises Voice-over-IP (VoIP) telephone system to a modern, hosted telephony solution. 

The successful proponent will provide hosted telephony services, installation, equipment, training, and support for a minimum of a five (5) year term. The successful proponent will also supply and install desk telephones, conference phones, ATA devices, as well as other required infrastructure per the specifications set out in this RFP. The solution will be capable of scaling over the term of the agreement, with a growth projection of 5% per year, without the need for a capital reinvestment (apart from user devices). 

The successful proponent will work with the City to port the existing telephone numbers from a mixture of SIP Trunks and local POTS/1FL services to the hosted telephony solution. Porting will take place outside of office operating hours (i.e. Saturday). 

The successful proponent will provision a dedicated connection to the primary site (City Hall, located at 66 Charlotte Street) as well as the City’s alternate site (Fire Hall, located at 3 Killaly Street West, Port Colborne) with the intent to handle voice traffic between the proponent’s core network and City facilities. The solution should be capable of transmitting voice traffic over public Internet as a failover mechanism for City facilities or for computer and mobile device soft-phones. 

The success of this project will enable staff to access the telephony system while working from City facilities or from elsewhere, through traditional VoIP desk phones, computer soft-phones or mobile device soft-phones. This project will also eliminate the need for on-premises telephony systems/hardware, apart from network infrastructure and user devices.