Lincoln County contracted today with local technology provider, Silver Star Communications, in partnership with international software-as-a-service provider, unicomconnect™, to provide interoperable voice, video and data services using existing county communication equipment.

“In our county we have encountered situations where available technology has been somewhat limiting in it’s capabilities as we attempt to communicate between different emergency responder organizations,” commented Lincoln County Commissioner, Jerry Harmon. “Safety of our citizens and our ability to effectively respond to emergency situations is of paramount concern for us. Jay Hokanson and Steve Malik in our County Homeland Security Department have worked tirelessly to substantially improve our communication abilities, and through this effort they have uncovered what we feel is an outstanding, cost effective solution to give us unusually flexible interoperability within our county, without the need to hire more personnel or buy additional equipment. This goes perfectly with our philosophy to do more with less.”

Sheriff Shane Johnson added, “We have a geographically challenging county which requires us to have two Emergency Operating Centers. The unicomconnect™ service will enable us to greatly increase the effectiveness and coordination efforts of each of these centers. This will in essence tie the North and South locations of the county together which results in greater efficiencies for all of our emergency responders.”

Jay Hokanson, County Homeland Security Deputy Coordinator, stated. “Lincoln County has been extremely supportive of advanced, cutting edge technologies and procedures that will increase the safety of our population. Most people are not aware that technology to allow communications between, for example, EMT’s, the Sheriff’s department and the Search and Rescue organizations has not been available without investing huge amounts of capital and incurring substantial ongoing costs. The cost effective service provided by Silver Star and unicomconnect™ not only gives us the ability to communicate between organizations, it further allows us to communicate from and to our radios, landlines and cell phones, instantly connecting all predefined, required personnel in any given emergency. With this technology, we will also have the ability to seamlessly communicate with key local industrial and utility organizations which could possibly save lives and increase effective community response time in emergency situations. We are very excited at the possibilities this will afford us as we work with the Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC).” Mr. Hokanson further commented that one of the compelling benefits of the service is that is designed to be used on a daily basis, not just in emergency situations.

Michael Beaton, CEO of unicomconnect™, commented, “Our design philosophy was to build a system that is simple to understand, easy to operate, scales on demand, yet remains affordable and offers the very best service and support. We have greatly enjoyed working with Lincoln County throughout their discovery process and have been very impressed with their forward thinking and planning. We look forward to working with them on this integration project.”

Allen Hoopes, CEO and President of Silver Star Communications, declared “We are excited to be working with Lincoln County on yet another project to provide increased communication abilities within our county. Lincoln County is very progressive in using technology to increase efficiencies within County operations. This adds to the sense of well-being in our communities. We feel the unicomconnect™ service will be a very powerful and effective tool in the hands of Lincoln County”.

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About Silver Star Communications - Silver Star Communications is a full-scale technology company offering communications and broadband services to a wide geographic area covering Eastern Idaho and Northwestern Wyoming. It has invested millions of dollars into a communications and broadband infrastructure to ensure they meet the future demands of the industry and serve residents to the best of their ability. For more information visit www.silverstar.com or call 208.354.6723.

About unicomconnect™ - unicomconnect™ provides continuous communication interoperability solutions on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) basis. Rather than continually paying for hardware, software and maintenance licenses, clients pay a fixed, monthly price that provides everything they require, including all support and maintenance to enable everyday convergence between voice, data, video, text and radio devices for enterprises and emergency responders using existing equipment, regardless of make, model, manufacturer or frequency. For more information visit www.unicomconnect.com or call 770.335.7613.

Silver Star Communications News Release (www.silverstar.com)