Think about the last time you called a government office as a resident. You wanted three things: a quick answer, a correct answer, and the right department without being transferred twice. The people who call your office want exactly the same.
Most of the cities, towns, and counties we meet are trying to deliver that on a phone system that was installed when flip phones were new. It still rings. But it costs more to keep alive every year, fewer people know how to service it, and it cannot do what a government needs from its phones now.
Carolina Digital Phone has been replacing those systems for public agencies since 2000. I recorded a short video on how we approach it, and below it I have written down the eight lessons that more than 25 years of government projects have taught my team and me.
Prefer to talk? We have a dedicated government sales team. Call (336) 543-0000.
Lesson 1: The technology is the easy part
Every provider has call routing, voicemail, and a mobile app. What separates a good government project from a painful one is what happens between the signed contract and the first Monday on the new phones.
We learned this for good in Augusta County, Virginia. The county’s Government Center moved to our platform in phases, department by department, with hundreds of employees involved. Plenty of them had used the same handset for two decades and saw no reason to change. So before we configured anything, we asked each department how it actually worked and built the system around the answers.
Andy Wells, who ran Parks and Recreation for the county, summed it up afterward: “Carolina Digital brought us into the 21st century.” He also told us the skeptics had turned into the biggest fans. You can read the full account in our Augusta County announcement.
What to take from it: ask a provider to describe its implementation process in detail. If the answer is a list of features, keep asking.
Lesson 2: Count your lines, not your phones
A government building is full of telephone lines that are not telephones. The courthouse elevator has one. So does the fire alarm panel, the pump station dialer, the gate at the maintenance yard, and the fax machine in the clerk’s office that other agencies still send to.
Nobody thinks about those lines until they stop working, and that day is getting closer. The FCC adopted rules in March 2026 to speed the retirement of copper networks, and certain legacy services in parts of the Carolinas may be discontinued on or after November 15, 2026. I explained what that means, and what to check first, in AT&T copper lines may shut off after November 15, 2026.
What to take from it: pull your phone bills and walk every building before you ask anyone for a quote. Some of those lines belong on a hosted system. Some belong with your alarm or elevator company. A provider who tells you the difference is doing you a favor.
Lesson 3: Every department is its own customer
Town hall, utility billing, public works, planning, and parks and recreation do not take the same kind of call, so they should not share the same call pattern. Billing needs callers held in order with an honest wait message. Public works needs a way to reach whoever is on call at two in the morning. Recreation needs a closure line it can update when the fields are flooded.
A modern cloud platform lets each office have what it needs while residents still experience one government. The tools are not exotic: intelligent call routing, automated attendants, voicemail delivered to email, text messaging on a department number, and call flows designed department by department. Staff can answer on a desk phone, a computer, or the mobile app, whether they are at a counter, in a truck, or at a job site.
What to take from it: design the phone system one department at a time, with someone from that department in the room.
Lesson 4: If your staff cannot change it, you do not really own it
Two of our North Carolina customers taught us how much this matters.
The City of Lexington had an aging on-site system and wanted backup beyond its own walls. It also wanted independence. Under the old arrangement, the city had to call its vendor for something as small as a voicemail password. Today the city’s IT staff makes everyday changes itself and uses call center reporting to see how calls are being handled. As Systems Administrator Lindsay Hedrick put it, “The integration for remote working has been very nice!”
Davidson County was living with a 25-year-old system, part digital and part VoIP, where even a minor change took specialized training. The county’s Chief Information Officer, Joel Hartley, has described the replacement as one of the most successful projects in the county’s history. That story is in our news and customer spotlights.
What to take from it: ask who will be able to add a user, change a greeting, or update holiday hours after installation, and how long it will take. The right answer is “your own people, in minutes.”
Lesson 5: 911 is a record you maintain, not a box you check
On an old system, a phone number was tied to a wire in a wall. On a cloud system, a phone can be carried to another office, and an app can be opened at someone’s kitchen table. That freedom is the point, but it means the emergency location for each phone has to be kept up to date by a person.
Federal rules, known as Kari’s Law and RAY BAUM’S Act, require three things of a multi-line phone system: anyone can dial 911 without a prefix, someone on site is alerted when they do, and the call carries a location specific enough to find the caller, down to the floor or room where that applies. In a county complex with six buildings, a street address is not enough.
One point of confusion is worth clearing up. A hosted phone system serves your administrative lines. The equipment your 911 center uses to answer emergencies is a different, specialized system. Our job is to hand that center a properly routed call with the right location attached. We deliver emergency calls through Sinch, a leading national NG911 aggregator.
What to take from it: name the employee responsible for updating 911 locations when phones move, and review the list on a schedule.
Lesson 6: Plan for the day the building is dark
We do business in hurricane country. When Florence came through in 2018, and when Helene hit the western counties in 2024, residents needed their governments more than on any ordinary day, and some government buildings had no power.
This is where a cloud system earns its keep. The platform does not live in your building, so it keeps running when your building does not. Authorized employees can keep answering from anywhere they can get an internet connection. Our own platform runs in Greensboro, Research Triangle Park, and Dallas, with automatic failover between them.
But none of that helps unless someone decided in advance where the calls should go and who is allowed to flip the switch. While you are writing that plan, look at the federal priority telecommunications programs run by CISA. Local governments can enroll critical circuits for priority repair, and officials can get priority calling on congested networks. You have to sign up before the storm, not during it.
What to take from it: write down, for each building, where its calls go if it loses power tonight, and who can make that happen.
Lesson 7: Your new phone system will create public records
The old cabinet stored almost nothing. A modern platform can email a voicemail with a written transcript, record calls, keep text conversations, and log every call in detail. For a private business that is convenience. For a government it is also a records question.
In North Carolina, what a record says determines how long it must be kept, not whether it is paper, audio, or a text message. The UNC School of Government explains this well in its guide to retention schedules, and the State Archives publishes the General Records Schedule for Local Government Agencies that your board adopts. South Carolina and Virginia have their own rules.
What to take from it: invite your attorney and your records officer to one planning meeting. Decide what gets recorded and how long it is kept before the features are switched on. We will set the system to match your policy.
Lesson 8: The lowest price and the best value are different numbers
Finance officers ask us the right question: what will this cost over its whole life? A hosted system removes several costs outright, including the maintenance agreement on old hardware and the trunk lines feeding it. Adds and changes stop generating service invoices. The monthly bill is steady, which makes it easy to budget. I laid out the full case in why county governments are choosing hosted VoIP.
I will also be straight about the other side. New phones, network improvements, and installation cost money up front, and a proposal that hides them is not doing you a favor.
North Carolina law gives local governments room to buy on value. Under General Statute 143-129.8, a city or county may purchase information technology, which includes telecommunications, through a request for proposals and award it to the best overall proposal. The UNC School of Government has a readable summary of the options. Your purchasing officer and attorney will know which path fits.
What to take from it: compare proposals on five-year total cost and on who does the work, not on the monthly rate alone. Our pricing page is a good place to start.
Five questions to answer before you call anyone, including us
You can learn a great deal about your own situation in one afternoon. Try to answer these.
- How old is our phone system, and who is still able to service it?
- How many lines are we paying for that are not desk phones, and what does each one do?
- If we needed to change the main greeting today, who would do it, and how long would it take?
- If town hall lost power tonight, where would tomorrow morning’s calls go?
- If someone dialed 911 from the second floor of our largest building, what location would the 911 center see?
If two or more of those answers are “I am not sure,” it is time for a conversation.
A partner, not just a vendor
A government phone project needs four groups to agree: elected and appointed leaders, the IT department, the finance office, and the administrators who answer the phones. We work with all four directly, with one goal: better service for residents at a cost you can control.
We are not a national call center. Our engineers are here in North Carolina, they pick up the phone, and our customers know them by name. We serve public agencies across North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, from small towns to county governments, along with school districts. You can see what we offer on our government phone system page and read more customer stories.
If you want the detailed planning version of this article, including a department-by-department routing table and ten questions to put in an RFP, we published a full municipal phone system guide on our Local Business VoIP site.
Common questions from government leaders
How much does a government phone system cost?
It depends on the number of users, buildings, and phones, and on how much network work is needed. A proposal should show the monthly service, one-time setup, equipment, and taxes and fees as separate lines. Start with our pricing page or request a quote.
Will it work with our paging, door phones, and fax machines?
Often, yes. Many of these connect through an adapter, and fax can move to online faxing with no machine at all. Alarm panels and elevator phones are different and should be reviewed with the companies that service them. We look at every device during the site review.
Do you work with small towns, or only large counties?
Both. We have served small municipal offices and county governments with many buildings. The planning steps are the same. Only the number of departments changes.
Can we keep our published phone numbers?
Yes. Your existing numbers transfer to the new service, and we coordinate that move with your current carrier. Your old service stays on until every number has been tested.
Who do we call to get started?
Our dedicated government sales team is at (336) 543-0000. Our main line is (336) 544-4000.
Let’s talk about your community
If your city, town, county, or agency is thinking about its phones, I would welcome the chance to speak with you personally. Call our government sales team at (336) 543-0000, or request a consultation. We will come to you, walk your buildings, and give you a proposal your board can read without a translator.
Nicky Smith is the founder of Carolina Digital Phone, a Greensboro, North Carolina provider of cloud phone, messaging, and AI call handling for business, education, and government since 2000.
