COLUMBUS, Ind. — With most government offices closed by the pandemic, many local residents rely on their phones to contact county personnel.
But getting through to a Bartholomew County government employee Thursday was, at best, a ‘hit-or-miss’ proposition.
Many who attempted to call a specific county department never heard so much as a ring on the other end. Instead, they quickly got a recorded voice stating their call couldn’t be completed, and to try again later.
Luckily, Emergency 911 telephone services operate on a different platform and were not affected by the outages, Bartholomew County Information Technology director Scott Mayes said.
The intermittent problems that courthouse personnel say continued on-and-off Thursday was the result of a equipment malfunction that permits a primary communication system to switch over to a backup system, Mayes said.
“The mechanisms installed to provide these redundancies malfunctioned and caused a series of brief interruptions,” the county IT director said.
For more on this story, see Saturday’s Republic.
