FARMINGTON – Representatives of the company that manufactured the console for the Franklin Regional Communications Center attended Tuesday’s county commissioner meeting, pledging to address any remaining issues with the equipment.
The console, a Zetron MAX, was purchased in 2017. It replaced a 12-year-old Motorola model at the cost of $166,000, half of which came out of the county’s tax increment financing fund. Over the following months, dispatchers and first responders grappled with issues relating to audio quality and lost transmissions. The Dispatch Advisory Board, local fire and police chiefs brought their concerns to commissioners and Zetron deployed software fixes in early 2018 that addressed those issues.
More recently, however, dispatchers have brought other, persistent issues to the commissioners’ attention. These include freezing workstations, requiring resets before working again; non-responsive screens and computer mouses; and emergency tones transmitting independent of dispatcher input. It reached a point where the director of the communications center, CL Folsom, asked commissioners to consider setting a deadline to have Zetron address the issues or seek another service provider.
Zetron deployed new firmware for the console roughly six weeks ago. That fix has addressed a number of the dispatch center’s issues, according to county officials, although some minor issues remain.
“It looks to us as if it’s going forward in a positive manner,” Tim Hardy, director of Franklin County Emergency Management Agency, said at Tuesday’s meeting.
Dan Delaney, Zetron’s vice president of sales for the Americas, and Ernie Burns, the company’s territory manager for the Northeast area, attended Tuesday’s county commissioners’ meeting to apologize for the dispatch console’s issues and reiterate that they intended to fix any remaining problems.
“I know that it’s been tough,” Delaney said. “We’ve had issues.” While the majority of the problems had been fixed, Delaney went on to say, they had gone on for too long. “We will get this thing working the way it should.”
Commissioners expressed disappointment with the console’s issues – Commissioner Terry Brann of Wilton called them “disheartening” – but they also thanked the Zetron officials for addressing the issues with the latest firmware patch.
Zetron would continue to work with the county to address the remaining issues, Delaney said.
We have learned that we should ALWAYS go for the low bidder because, we’ll, they’re cheap!
Actually this console was the one the former communications director wanted. He insisted it would solve the counties problems. The Franklin County Budget committee voted against founding this purchase if you look back at the minutes of their meetings and newspaper reports. It was approved by Former commissioners in a way to circumvent the budget process. It is a shame to waste tax payers dollars.