The city’s Department of Education is planning to retire the thousands of old landlines that still run through its roughly 1,800 schools. A new, fully online phone network is on the agenda, and the agency has begun reaching out to contractors to produce a bid for it.
“The future of our schools, the city, and the world is digital,” a DOE spokesperson said. “We’re in the early stages of exploring telecommunication options that could dramatically cut our dependence on traditional landlines.”
In a press release, the department described the project as a focus on resilience and reliability. “The goal is to build a system that can survive disruptions and to reduce the time it takes to restore services when outages do happen,” the official added.
To begin the process, the DOE issued an information request to potential vendors—a step toward a formal solicitation for a new telecommunications framework.
The filing explains that the agency wants to move from aging digital PBX (Private Branch Exchange) hardware to a single, robust, and cost‑effective VOI (Voice over Internet Protocol) platform. This network will replace the current phone systems in more than 1,800 school buildings and administrative offices.
The overhaul is likely to proceed under Mayor‑elect Zohran Mamdani’s administration. It comes at a time when New York’s schools have begun banning students’ personal cell phones during class, a rule recently endorsed by Gov. Kathy Hochul.
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