Edited by Suzanne Bowen. While China Telecom and China Unicom state, “all VoIP phone services are illegal on the Chinese mainland, except those provided by telecommunications carriers China Telecom and China Unicom,” Las Cruces, New Mexico mayor embraces the idea in the southwestern U.S.A. state.

What more could a government contractor in IP communications wish than the mayor of a city to recommend VoIP for public safety and business continuity? That’s exactly what Mayor Ken Miyagishima of Las Cruces, New Mexico did.

He is encouraging the city government to take care of charges to install four Comcast voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) lines at the New Mexico State Police communications center. Recently Mesilla Valley Regional Dispatch Authority (MVRDA) experienced two outages in telephone service that forced the emergency dispatch system to become inoperable on December 14, 2010 and also again on December 27, 2010.

Hugo Costa, the MVRDA director, is interested but wants to study all associated and potential costs that could be associated with it. For example, Comcast cable service is not available in the area where MVRDA is located. Because of this, running lines to this area via Comcast cable would cost millions.

What’s wrong with this picture? Would the MVRDA be possibly better served by another voice over Internet provider whose service would not need extra lines?

“We don’t have a third layer, and that’s an expensive proposition,” Costa said. “It comes down to the consideration of how far can we afford to plan. No one that I’m aware of has a tertiary program.”

And one Techistan community member asks, “What is a tertiary program? What does this have to do with the problem?”

Costa added that the “political will has to go forward” in decisions like that. Councilor Dolores Connor, chairwoman of MVRDA’s board of directors agreed, but pointed out that city of Las Cruces and Do-a Ana County governments have failed to fully fund the Joint Powers Agreement they’ve each entered into with MVRDA.

“There has to be a willingness to put something like this at the top of the list,” Connor said. “…Whatever it takes, we should be willing to do it.”

Miyagishima said he doesn’t want to wait for governmental bureaucracy to slow down the process.

“I don’t want to wait until Friday,” Miyagishima said. “It’s imperative we move fast and put something in place.”

Steve Ramirez can be reached at 1 (575) 541-5452.

First published on http://www.lcsun-news.com/dona_ana_news/ci_17006375?source=rss … this article is a revised version with comments from Techistan community added in italics. Contact the Las Cruces, New Mexico government at http://www.las-cruces.org/.