New county phone system goes down

Callers trying to reach any Grady County government offices Tuesday afternoon after approximately 3 p.m. could not get through and received a busy signal.
Grady County Administrator Carlos Tobar says the phone system malfunction lasted for approximately four hours.
“We could dial out and we never lost Internet service, but the public could not call in without getting a busy signal,” Tobar said.
That applied to all Grady County offices, including all courthouse offices, the sheriff’s office and Grady Emergency Medical Service.
According to Tobar, calls to Decatur-Grady 911 were not affected.
The county recently spent nearly $52,000 on a new Voice Over Internet Protocol phone system.
Paul Odum, owner of Odum Telecommunications of Thomasville, was called in Tuesday afternoon to trouble shoot the problem, according to Tobar.
Odum rebooted the Primary Rate Interface (PRI) and the Private Branch Exchange (PBX) to restore full phone service by approximately 7 p.m. Tuesday.
“Each piece of phone equipment has a motherboard like a computer. Sometimes you just need to reboot. I’m glad it happened at the end of the day. It could happen again, but we will be ready for it,” Tobar said.
The administrator said that calls come into the PRI and are then distributed to the PBX. Outgoing calls go to the PBX and then to the PRI.
Tobar said that Odum showed him how to reboot the equipment in the event the system goes down again.
“We regret any inconvenience this may have caused the public or anyone trying to contact county government Tuesday afternoon,” Tobar said.