It took two months and over $100,000, but the signs hanging on DVC’s Code Blue emergency phones reading, “Out of service. For emergencies, please call 911,” have been taken down

“You always worry that when you don’t have one of your tools available, that’s when you’ll need it,” said Lieutenant Tom Sharp, relieved that the phones are back on-line.

The entire Contra Costa College district had their Code Blue phones undergo a mandatory internal upgrade to cope with a signal shift from analog, to digital, resulting in a two-month phone downtime.

Officer Ted Terstegge described the switch from analog to digital as “like what they’re doing with the television industry,” similar to how over-the-air analog TV will be obsolete to digital TV in 2009.

The district became aware of the required upgrade last September after a routine Code Blue phone testing, said facilities and operations manager, Guy Grace.

Despite efforts to upgrade the phones before the signal shifted, the phones went offline before the change could be made.

“The timing was such that we [didn’t get] it done before the phones companies switched over to digital,” said Grace

Grace was glad the lag wasn’t as long as it could have been. “It wasn’t an ideal situation, [but] people have cell phones, and police services were aware of the situation.”

When the phones went offline Feb. 22, Officer Ted Terstegge “put up an alert to let everyone know.”.

The phones remained offline until April 21, when they underwent the upgrade. The entire upgrading process only took several days, Grace said.

Currently, only one phone is offline at DVC.

“We’re taking care of it,” Grace said of the phone in the parking lot near the new solar panels. “We [had to] pour a new foundation, and the bolts weren’t high enough.”

“We hope to have it corrected in the next few weeks,” Terstegge said.

Sharp said the phones will now be under the direct oversight of the DVC police services.

“The [phone] testing wasn’t as rigid as it’s going to be,” he said.

The DVC police service will now test the Code Blue phones weekly.