CALL24 Wireless
Newsletters
Welcome to the new RCS Wireless Technology website.
Check with us periodically for industry news and commentary. We’ll occasionally receive input from guest writers on behalf of our CALL24 Wireless Callbox Division. (see the CALL24 Newsletter links to the left).
Thanks for visiting.
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TRIADLINK™ – Connecting a region
With the amazing proliferation of personal communication appliance options - two-way radios, pagers, smartphones, hot-spot-connected computers, etc., businesses are faced with numerous challenges in determining the best choice to keep their "field-based" work force connected. In recent years, many have opted for cellphones with the walkie-talkie style option to mimick traditional two-way radios.
While cell-phones offer conversation privacy, they fail to support business managers who need to stay "in-the-loop". A local business owner recently lamented, "Since we switched to cellphones, I don't know what's going on anymore". Other managers have complained about how personal use of a business phone leads to productivity losses -- a problem exacerbated by conflicts encountered when holding employees accountable for such use.
Then there's the insidious phantom costs of using cell-based dispatch communications. Companies unwittingly increase their costs when dispatching via cell-phones as per-minute charges apply to all phones that receive a dispatch broadcast -- a big surprise, come the next billing cycle.
RCS Wireless Technology is responding to business owners and managers that need dispatch capability throughout North Carolina's greater Triad area of Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and High Point. TRIADLINK™ is a new, low-cost wide-area radio communication solution. Unlimited talk time comes with a low monthly connection & service labor fee....No surprise charges for exceeding allotted minutes and no non-business calls to worry with.
At a time when the costs of operating a fleet of vehicles is skyrocketing, it makes perfect sense to control the costs to communicate with that fleet. Cellphone dispatching....it's so....90s.
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Mass Notification – getting your message out instantly
Let’s get started by talking about a catchphrase that’s emerged recently regarding educational campus’s instant emergency communication needs – “Mass Notification”. In our business, we’re constantly having discussions with university leaders about safety and security matters and we’ve had numerous conversations on this subject. We’ve learned that the term “Mass Notification” means many things to many people. To some, it’s about having the capability to dispatch electronic messages in a matter of seconds to pagers, cell phones, PDAs, e-mails, etc. Such messages would be about some critical event that’s occurring on campus. To others, it may simply be a campus wide public address announcement. Still, to some, it means having a giant siren at a central location on campus that, when activated, makes the place sound like it’s about to be attacked in an aerial assault.
While electronic messaging via pagers and cell phones can provide critical safety information, there are some well-defined drawbacks to the effectiveness of using this technology as a sole alerting system. For instance, we’ve found that professors generally require their students to turn off pagers and cell phones while in class...so much for getting a timely electronic message to that group. Secondly, if you have a large student population, you’ll have to get the message out potentially tens of thousands of times. Just how long does this take and will the I.T. and communication infrastructure hold up to such an instant demand of its resources? At this stage, a little over a year removed from the tragic events that occurred at Virginia Tech, we still do not know.
CALL24’s parent company, RCS Wireless Technology sells siren systems, so how can we say we’re against sirens? We’re not. However, in the case of emergency communication to a student population, what exactly are you communicating? Ask the student what they’re supposed to do when a siren goes off, and you’ll likely find them lacking in understanding the nature of the emergency. But wow, it can be heard everywhere! Yes…over great distances! Add the voice PA option to such a behemoth speaker array and anyone near the cluster will hear a massive wall of sound. Of course, intelligibility suffers with such unbearable volume.
All this considered, CALL24 has elected to offer a notification product that's not an end-all mass notification solution, but rather a component of a larger communication strategy. Beta customers are raving about – the CALL24 S-Series Wireless Callbox “Campus Alert” option. This product consists of S-Series callboxes with the optional PA output and speakers. The “secret sauce”, if you will, is the control console, pre-configured with a selection of messages that can be tailored to the school’s emergency response policy – no more wondering what to say when lives may be in the balance. Simply execute the plan, and instantly, the appropriate message is clearly heard from the campus callbox PA speakers at a volume level that’s commanding, yet not overpowering.
Sounds pretty simple.
Years ago, a Vice President of an up-and-coming regional airline said something I thought pretty funny at the time. His company had just won the “Airline of the Year” award, outperforming every airline in the world in numerous industry metrics. They had no jumbo jets, had just recently phased out propeller driven aircraft, and were but a fraction the size of the major carriers. He jokingly confessed his fear for the state of the airline business, because, as he said, “I know how simple we are!” Hmmm..simple, yet coveted.
While each type of campus notification system may have its place, CALL24 has addressed the subject in a manner that’s quick and simple. CALL24’s “Campus Alert” works the way university leaders want and expect it to, easily integrating into a broader mass-notification solution.
In this case, simple is good.