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Welcome Back To The Wireless Messaging News Communications Interoperability Training with Amateur Radio Community SetElements of the US Department of Defense will conduct a "communications interoperability" training exercise November 4-6, once again simulating a "very bad day" scenario. Amateur Radio and MARS organizations will take part. "This exercise will begin with a notional massive coronal mass ejection event which will impact the national power grid as well as all forms of traditional communication, including landline telephone, cellphone, satellite, and internet connectivity," Army MARS Program Manager Paul English, WD8DBY, explained in an announcement. During the exercise, a designated DOD Headquarters entity will request county-by-county status reports for the 3,143 US counties and county equivalents, in order to gain situational awareness and to determine the extent of impact of the scenario. Army and Air Force MARS organizations will work in conjunction with the Amateur Radio community, primarily on the 60-meter interoperability channels as well as on HF NVIS frequencies and local VHF and UHF, non-Internet linked Amateur Radio repeaters. Again this year, a military station on the east coast and the Fort Huachuca, Arizona, HF station will conduct a high-power broadcast on 60-meter channel 1 (5,330.5 kHz) on Saturday from 0300 to 0315 UTC. New this year will be an informational broadcast on Sunday, on 13,483.5 kHz USB from 1600 to 1615 UTC. Amateur Radio operators should monitor these broadcasts for more information about the exercise and how they can participate in this communications exercise, English said. "We want to continue building on the outstanding cooperative working relationship with ARRL and the Amateur Radio community," English said. "We want to expand the use of the 60-meter inter-op channels between the military and amateur community for emergency communications, and we hope the Amateur Radio community will give us some good feedback on the use of both the 5-MHz inter-op and the new 13-MHz broadcast channels as a means of information dissemination during a "very bad day" scenario. Contact English for more information or questions about this exercise. [Source: The ARRL Letter for October 26, 2017] Click on the image above for more info. Now on to more news and views. |
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A new issue of the Wireless Messaging Newsletter is posted on the web each week. A notification goes out by e-mail to subscribers on most Fridays around noon central US time. The notification message has a link to the actual newsletter on the web. That way it doesn’t fill up your incoming e-mail account. There is no charge for subscription and there are no membership restrictions. Readers are a very select group of wireless industry professionals, and include the senior managers of many of the world’s major Paging and Wireless Messaging companies. There is an even mix of operations managers, marketing people, and engineers — so I try to include items of interest to all three groups. It’s all about staying up-to-date with business trends and technology. I regularly get readers’ comments, so this newsletter has become a community forum for the Paging, and Wireless Messaging communities. You are welcome to contribute your ideas and opinions. Unless otherwise requested, all correspondence addressed to me is subject to publication in the newsletter and on my web site. I am very careful to protect the anonymity of those who request it. I spend the whole week searching the Internet for news that I think may be of interest to you — so you won’t have to. This newsletter is an aggregator — a service that aggregates news from other news sources. You can help our community by sharing any interesting news that you find.
Editorial Opinion pieces present only the opinions of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of any of advertisers or supporters. This newsletter is independent of any trade association. I don't intend to hurt anyone's feelings, but I do freely express my opinions. Subscribe IT'S FREE * required field If you would like to subscribe to the newsletter just fill in the blanks in the form above, and then click on the “Subscribe” button. There is no charge for subscription and there are no membership restrictions. It’s all about staying up-to-date with business trends and technology. The Wireless Messaging News
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Investor Relations — News Release Spok Reports 2017 Third Quarter Operating Results; Software Revenue Improves Both Sequentially and Year-Over-Year, Stable Wireless TrendsBoard Declares Regular Quarterly DividendSPRINGFIELD, Va.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Oct. 24, 2017— Spok Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPOK), a global leader in critical communications, today announced operating results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2017. In addition, the Company’s Board of Directors declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.125 per share, payable on December 8, 2017 to stockholders of record on November 17, 2017. 2017 Third-Quarter Results: In the 2017 third quarter, consolidated revenue was $43.6 million, up from $42.3 million in the second quarter of 2017. Software revenue was $18.5 million in the third quarter of 2017, up from $16.7 million in the prior quarter. Wireless revenue totaled $25.1 million in the third quarter, compared to $25.6 million in the prior quarter. Net income for the third quarter of 2017 was $3.7 million, or $0.19 per diluted share, compared to $1.5 million, or $0.07 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2017. Third quarter EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and accretion) totaled $6.1 million, or 14.0 percent of revenue, compared to EBITDA of $5.3 million, or 12.4 percent of revenue, in the second quarter of 2017. Other key results and highlights for the third quarter included:
Management Commentary: “We are pleased with our performance in the third quarter of 2017. We generated strong levels of software revenue, maintained our industry-high renewal rates on maintenance contracts and saw stable performance in wireless revenue. We achieved this while making tremendous progress executing on our long-term strategy to move from offering our customers ‘point solutions’, or single-product solutions, for call center software, alarm management and secure messaging to offering them a single integrated platform called Spok Care Connect®,” said Vincent D. Kelly, chief executive officer. “Third quarter performance benefited from the investments we made to enhance and upgrade our product development team and tools, as well as our sales infrastructure and management. Throughout the remainder of 2017, and over the next several years, Spok will continue to make the necessary investments in the people, technology and marketing programs that positions the company for sustainable growth to generate long-term shareholder value. “During the quarter, we saw strong performance in a number of key operating measures, sequential and year-over-year improvements in software revenue levels, and historical high revenue backlog levels. Noteworthy in the third quarter, was a more than 3 percent increase in total revenue from the prior quarter, as software revenue growth outpaced the anticipated decline in wireless revenue. This represents our second consecutive quarter of total revenue growth. Overall, we continued to operate profitably, enhance our product offerings, and further strengthen our balance sheet. In the third quarter, strong cash flow generation allowed us to execute against our capital allocation strategy while adding to our cash balances. We are excited by the momentum that our team generated in the period and remain confident as we head into the fourth quarter.” Commenting on software results, Kelly said: “We were very pleased to see year-over-year and sequential improvements in software revenue levels in the third quarter. We believe that results such as these validate our transition strategy as we pivot to a company that offers industry-leading software solutions.” Kelly attributed the ability to improve from prior quarter and year software revenue levels to improvements in sales, product and software initiatives as well as a more than 99 percent renewal rate on software maintenance contracts. Similar to Spok’s wireless revenue stream, software maintenance revenue is a largely recurring revenue stream that provides the Company with a more stable revenue and margin base. Combining software maintenance and wireless revenue, nearly 80 percent of Spok’s revenue is recurring in nature. Kelly said third quarter bookings of $18.3 million were in-line with bookings of $18.7 million in the prior year quarter, and included $9.0 million of operations bookings, up from $8.5 million in the year-earlier period. Additionally, software backlog of $46.9 million at September 30th was up on both a sequential and year-over-year basis and represents an historical high. “We are encouraged as bookings included sales to both new and current customers, with existing customers adding products and applications to expand their portfolio of communications solutions. Customer demand remained strongest for upgrades to call center solutions, healthcare applications to increase patient safety, and improved nursing workflows.” Kelly added: “We continue to see growing demand for our software solutions for critical smartphone communications, secure texting, and emergency management, as well as clinical alerting, and we are proud to be working with more than 1,900 hospitals.” “During the quarter, we also initiated several new client relationships and were pleased to welcome nearly 20 new customers to the Spok family. Our success in generating new customer relationships is due in large part to our marketing efforts. In late September we participated in the Becker’s Hospital Review 3rd Annual Health IT & Revenue Cycle Conference, in Chicago. With more than 3,000 participants, Spok senior management, participated on speaking panels and continued to enhance our reputation with hospital C-Suites. We generated more than 160 new leads from the conference, a sharp increase from last year. Also, last week, Spok welcomed leaders from more than 100 hospitals to Connect 17, our annual conference for healthcare professionals. The event took place in New Orleans, providing a setting for healthcare clinicians, IT experts, and C-suite executives to explore the challenges and opportunities of using communication technology to improve patient outcomes. These conferences and the tradeshows we attend continue to be valuable opportunities for us to grow our brand, demonstrate thought-leadership and showcase the benefits of our integrated platform, Spok Care Connect.” The Company posted solid results for its wireless products and services in the third quarter. Gross pager disconnects of 53,000 were down from the year-earlier quarter, while gross placements of 30,000 were down from 34,000 in the third quarter of 2016. “As a result of this performance and stable ARPU levels over the past few quarters, wireless revenue, on a trailing twelve-month basis, is down only 8 percent from last year. This compares favorably to the guidance range we had provided at the beginning of the year,” continued Kelly. “Overall, wireless sales efforts continued to focus primarily on our core market segments of Healthcare, Government and Large Enterprise, which represented 92.6 percent of our subscriber base and 91.2 percent of our wireless revenue in the third quarter. Healthcare comprised just over 80 percent of our subscriber base, and continued to be our best performing market segment with the highest rate of gross placements and lowest rate of unit disconnects.” Spok returned capital to stockholders, totaling $2.5 million, in the third quarter of 2017, in the form of its regular quarterly dividend. Kelly added, “We are proud to continue our tradition of returning cash to our shareholders. Thus far, in 2017, we have returned nearly $23 million, in the form of dividends and share repurchases. We remain committed to our multi-faceted capital allocation strategy, which includes returning cash to shareholders and strategic investments in our business to generate long-term growth.” Michael W. Wallace, chief financial officer, said: “Continued expense management and strong financial discipline have allowed us to invest in our business for long-term growth. Our ability to align our expense base with the market demand we are seeing and drive high renewal rates in our recurring revenue categories has helped Spok to mostly offset the more than 40 percent increase in research and development expenses over the past year to support the investments we are making in our sales and product platforms. Spok’s balance sheet remains strong, with a cash balance of $110.1 million at September 30, 2017, a nearly $3 million increase from the prior quarter. Also, we continue to operate as a debt-free company.” Business Outlook: Commenting on the Company’s previously provided financial guidance for 2017, Wallace noted: “As a result of the solid performance we saw in the third quarter, we are maintaining the 2017 guidance range that we provided at the beginning of the year. However, based on our year-to-date performance, we believe that we will come in at, or above, the midpoint of the revenue range and at the low-end of the expense range. We look forward to presenting our expectations for 2018 when we release our 2017 fourth quarter results.” Regarding financial guidance for 2017, Wallace reiterated that the Company expects total revenue to range from $161 million to $177 million, operating expenses (excluding depreciation, amortization and accretion) to range from $153 million to $159 million, and capital expenditures to range from $8 million to $12 million. 2017 Third-Quarter Call and Replay: Spok plans to host a conference call for investors to discuss its 2017 third quarter results at 10:00 a.m. ET on Thursday, October 26, 2017. Dial-in numbers for the call are 888-349-9618 or 323-794-2093. The pass code for the call is 5731175. A replay of the call will be available from 1:00 p.m. ET on October 26, 2017 until 1:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 9, 2017. To listen to the replay, please register at http://tinyurl.com/spokQ32017earningsreplay. Please enter the registration information, and you will be given access to the replay. About Spok Spok Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPOK), headquartered in Springfield, Va., is proud to be the global leader in healthcare communications. We deliver clinical information to care teams when and where it matters most to improve patient outcomes. Top hospitals rely on the Spok Care Connect® platform to enhance workflows for clinicians, support administrative compliance, and provide a better experience for patients. Our customers send over 100 million messages each month through their Spok® solutions. When seconds count, count on Spok. For more information, visit spok.com or follow @spoktweets on Twitter. Spok is a trademark of Spok Holdings, Inc. Spok Care Connect and Spok Mobile are trademarks of Spok, Inc. Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act: Statements contained herein or in prior press releases which are not historical fact, such as statements regarding Spok’s future operating and financial performance, are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause Spok’s actual results to be materially different from the future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expectations include, but are not limited to, declining demand for paging products and services, continued demand for our software products and services, our ability to develop additional software solutions for our customers and manage our development as a global organization, the ability to manage operating expenses, future capital needs, competitive pricing pressures, competition from both traditional paging services and other wireless communications services, competition from other software providers, government regulation, reliance upon third-party providers for certain equipment and services, unauthorized breaches or failures in cybersecurity measures adopted by us and/or included in our products and services, as well as other risks described from time to time in our periodic reports and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Although Spok believes the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be attained. Spok disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statements. [Financial tables follow at the source.] |
Source: | Spok Holdings, Inc. |
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Answers to Emergency Radio Failure and Allegations in St. Mary’s County, Still UnclearOctober 26, 2017
On Tuesday, October 24, 2017, at 4:15 a.m., dispatchers at the St. Mary’s County Emergency Communications Center were made aware that Sheriff’s Office Deputies were unable to hear them. The computer system alerted dispatchers to several minor system alarms. Following protocol they then transitioned to their portable backup radios and said they were able to communicate with all field units. Additionally in accordance with protocol, dispatchers contacted a Radio Tech and Deputy Director of Emergency Services and Technology, Steve Walker to resolve the issues. At approximately 6:30 a.m., the St. Mary’s Sheriff’s Deputies and fire and EMS personnel were alert for a reported baby not breathing. Field personnel at fire and EMS departments in the county were not notified of a problem with the system prior to the call at 6:30 a.m. According to Shawn Davidson, Chief of the Lexington Park Volunteer Rescue Squad, at the time of the 911 call for service for the reported baby not breathing on Liberty Street in Lexington Park the radio system was still not operating properly. The alert tones that signal EMS volunteers to respond to a call failed to activate for providers in Lexington Park and the staffed ambulance crew was unaware of the call. Fire personnel were alerted by a third-party phone application. An ambulance was eventually made aware of the call and responded arriving 14 minutes after the initial units were dispatched. Bay District Volunteer Fire Department Chief, Robert Wahrenbrock also expressed his concern over the lack of notification of the communications system failure. “It would have been the easiest thing to let us know we needed to monitor for calls,” he said. Wahrenbrock confirmed that the fire department’s official alert system connected to the county’s dispatch system did not work either. He continued, “If we didn’t have Active 911 plugged into our station systems my guys would have never known.” Shawn Davidson, chief of the Lexington Park Volunteer Rescue Squad also expressed frustration. “It’s not like they don’t know how to contact every EMS and fire chief in the county to let us know there’s a problem,” Davidson said. “The only reason our crew knew about the call was that the driver happened to pass through the radio room and hear a request for response from the ambulance. He advised the dispatch center that he would respond as soon as his crew was ready and sent a crew member to alert the provider in charge to the call so they could go.” The Lexington Park Volunteer Rescue Squad is involved in 49% of dispatches in St. Mary’s County. They staff two crews 24/7/365 and were dispatched nearly 7,500 times in fiscal 2017. There was a staffed unit available and reported to the dispatch center at the time of the call Tuesday morning. “We can’t go to calls we don’t know about,” Davidson said. “But,” he continued “the problem is bigger than a single incident. I have been saying privately for years and publicly since July that leadership change was necessary at ES&T. I’ve had private conversations with commissioners and the county administrator expressing my concerns and frustration with obstruction and lack of communication from the director.” Davidson says that the most unfortunate thing about the call Tuesday morning that has garnered so much attention is that it isn’t the real problem but rather a symptom of systemic problems that volunteers in St. Mary’s County have been raising issues about for a very long time. He says that when volunteers instigated a SWOT (Strengths Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis the director of Emergency Services & Technology refused to participate. He went on, “We have identified weakness in our system and devised solutions only to have the solutions delayed or scuttled outright by the director. We have watched the director sideline and marginalize competent career public servants through a combination of micromanagement and threats. All these concerns have been expressed to various government officials to no avail.” Davidson went on to say, the original combination of Emergency Services with Information Technologies was undertaken by the St Mary’s County Commissioners as a cost cutting measure that eliminated a director-level salary from the budget. Since then the addition of a deputy director’s position has limited the cost effectiveness of that step. “There is a widely held belief that Mr. Kelly was installed in his current position and has been protected in it due to his friendship with Commissioner Morgan,”. He says that Morgan (R – Lexington Park/California) is one of the commissioners he’s expressed concerns to over the length of his tenure who appears to ignore any concerns expressed to him about Mr. Kelly’s performance. “Commissioner O’Connor seems to be the only one willing to actually look at the problems we’re facing and take steps to correct the issues that led to the kind of system failure we saw this week,” Davidson said. Reached for comment, Commissioner John O’Connor (R-Avenue/Mechanicsville/Charlotte Hall) said, “My thoughts and prayers are with the family during their time of loss. Not a soul on earth should have to suffer such a tragedy.” When asked about the concerns expressed by fire and EMS leaders he said “The situation being brought to light by the fire and rescue community are staggering, and are being taken very seriously.” Davidson expressed support for the idea of outside investigators looking into the failure Tuesday morning. “Fundamentally the county government is trying to protect itself,” he said. “If they don’t want the impression of clouding facts, searching for excuses and attempting to scapegoat whomever they need someone outside looking in to be transparent. Maybe then they’ll see the need to fix fundamental flaws. This shouldn’t be a question.” Wahrenbrock agrees. “This situation should have never happened,” he said. “Responders should have been told the radio system was not working properly so we could adapt. That was a management decision from the director. So someone he can’t influence needs to look at it.” When asked for the best solution both chiefs agreed: replace the Director of the Department of Emergency Services and Technology. “Mr. Kelly is a good man,” Davidson said, “but he isn’t the right man to be the ultimate word on public safety in St. Mary’s County.” The St. Mary’s County Department of Emergency Services and Technology Offered the following response regarding the October 24 Radio System Operations. The St. Mary’s County Department of Emergency Services and Technology has received a number of inquiries regarding the emergency communications radio system on the morning of October 24. The department has completed an initial investigation. At approximately 0415 hours on October 24, 2017 Emergency Communications Dispatchers received a radio communication from a deputy. Staff responded to the unit however no response confirming the transmission was received. Police dispatchers noticed when attempting to key up on the console there was a delay that is not usually there. Other sheriff’s units attempted to radio in and were unable to hear us answering them back. Sheriff’s Office Headquarters was able to acknowledge their messages. The computer system alerted dispatchers to several minor system alarms. Immediately we transitioned to our portable backup radios and were able to communicate with all field units. Contact was made with the Radio Tech and the Deputy Director Steve Walker. Tests pages were performed which confirmed an issue with paging. At 0434, the 9-1-1 center received a call for a Residential Fire Alarm — this call was dispatched with paging tones broadcasted successfully via the back-up paging system. A staff member was sent to the back-up 9-1-1 center and confirmed that the consoles at this site were also impacted. At approximately 0550 the Radio Technician arrived at the 9-1-1 Center and began troubleshooting. Several tests with audio and page tones were performed with successful tones transmitted to Forestry and Fire Company 9’s page tones from the console. The Technician advised to restart our console radios. At this time dispatching from the consoles was resumed. At 0635 a CPR in Progress call was received at our 9-1-1 Center. Communications received a call regarding a 2 week old male unresponsive and not breathing. Dispatchers initiated EMD and began assisting the caller and immediately began alerting the FIRE/EMS response assignment. St. Mary’s County utilizes multiple systems to alert our First Responders of a Call for Service — Page Tones, Text Messages, and Active 9-1-1 notices. The Alerts were broadcasted at 0636 to Fire Company 3, EMS Station 39, and Advance Life Support. At 0637 St. Mary’s County Sheriff and Maryland State Police are simulcast dispatched. Brush3 reports enroute at 0639. Safe3 reports enroute at 0640. Medic3 and Sheriff’s Deputy report enroute at 0641. In accordance with dispatching protocol at 0642 the Duty Ambulance (Station 39) is challenged (second attempt). At 0642 Station 39 responds that they are waiting for Primary Care (PC) — dispatchers contact Pax River requesting Paramedic Ambulance from the base. Sheriff Unit reports on location at 0643 and alerts are broadcasted to Station 38, Company 6 Ambulance, Ambulance 139 and tones resounded for EMS Station 39 Duty Crew. Safety 3 arrives on scene and begins CPR at 0643. A139(BLS) and A399 report enroute at 0645. A399 arrived on-scene at 0649. * time stamps below While on the phone, dispatch confirmed that the child was not breathing and began giving the caller CPR instructions for an infant. The caller advised another occupant of the residence was performing CPR. Using EMD (Emergency Medical Dispatch), the dispatcher went over the instructions with the caller to make sure they were performing CPR correctly. While being assisted with Pre Arrival Instructions, the caller terminated the phone call. Immediate attempts to regain communication with the residence where unsuccessful. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of this infant. Our community works very hard to provide the best response possible to every call for help received at the 9-1-1 center. Dispatchers, Police, Fire, and EMS constantly train and are always seeking ways to improve our response. We continually conduct comprehensive reviews of policies and system performance. * (Time Stamps)
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Source: | Southern Maryland News Net |
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Extreme Networks CEO Ed Meyercord On The Difference Between Extreme And Ciscoby Kyle Alspach on October 25, 2017, 11:40 am EDT Networking vendor Extreme Networks is taking aim at the No. 1 player in the market, Cisco, with some sharp criticisms of Cisco's acquisition and product strategies. In an interview with CRN during Extreme's 2017 Global Partner Summit, Extreme Networks CEO Ed Meyercord said that Cisco has paid "crazy" prices for certain acquisitions and that some of the company's products are "science fair stuff." Extreme has made a recent string of asset acquisitions from companies including Avaya and Brocade for $210 million in total, but the vendor remains focused on its core business of enterprise networking, Meyercord told CRN during the conference in Orlando, Fla. "We're not going to chase shiny objects. That's what Cisco does. We're going to let Cisco do that," Meyercord said. "They pay crazy prices for technology that they feel they need, and then the bet is that they have this massive distribution, and then they're going to go sell it. It might work for them—I think most times it doesn't. But in our case, we're not going to go chasing shiny objects, silver bullets." In recent years, he said, Extreme has re-organized itself to focus on what it believes customers and partners are most interested in.
"It's different from our competitors, that I would say are more engineering-focused perhaps, in terms of creating products—some of them science fair stuff—pushing them out to customers. And it's not always in the customer's best interest," Meyercord said. "But if you're a big company like Cisco, you can do that." While competitors such as Cisco and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are certainly pursuing the enterprise networking market, "they're focused everywhere else," he added. At Extreme Networks, "we have a [market] share opportunity, where a small share point has a big impact on our business. It's a big opportunity for us," Meyercord said. If all goes well in terms of working with partners, he said, "we can pick off some share points and take share and create some nice growth at Extreme." |
Source: | CRN TV |
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Disaster-Proven Paging for Public SafetyPaging system designs in the United States typically use a voice radio-style infrastructure. These systems are primarily designed for outdoor mobile coverage with modest indoor coverage. Before Narrowbanding, coverage wasn’t good, but what they have now is not acceptable! The high power, high tower approach also makes the system vulnerable. If one base station fails, a large area loses their paging service immediately! Almost every technology went from analog to digital except fire paging. So it’s time to think about digital paging! The Disaster-Proven Paging Solution (DiCal) from Swissphone offers improved coverage, higher reliability and flexibility beyond anything that traditional analog or digital paging systems can provide. Swissphone is the No. 1 supplier for digital paging solutions worldwide. The Swiss company has built paging networks for public safety organizations all over the world. Swissphone has more than 1 million pagers in the field running for years and years due to their renowned high quality. DiCal is the digital paging system developed and manufactured by Swissphone. It is designed to meet the specific needs of public safety organizations. Fire and EMS rely on these types of networks to improve incident response time. DiCal systems are designed and engineered to provide maximum indoor paging coverage across an entire county. In a disaster situation, when one or several connections in a simulcast solution are disrupted or interrupted, the radio network automatically switches to fall back operating mode. Full functionality is preserved at all times. This new system is the next level of what we know as “Simulcast Paging” here in the U.S.
Swissphone offers high-quality pagers, very robust and waterproof. Swissphone offers the best sensitivity in the industry, and battery autonomy of up to three months. First responder may choose between a smart s.QUAD pager, which is able to connect with a smartphone and the Hurricane DUO pager, the only digital pager who offers text-to-voice functionality. Bluetooth technology makes it possible to connect the s.QUAD with a compatible smartphone, and ultimately with various s.ONE software solutions from Swissphone. Thanks to Bluetooth pairing, the s.QUAD combines the reliability of an independent paging system with the benefits of commercial cellular network. Dispatched team members can respond back to the call, directly from the pager. The alert message is sent to the pager via paging and cellular at the same time. This hybrid solution makes the alert faster and more secure. Paging ensures alerting even if the commercial network fails or is overloaded. Swissphone sets new standards in paging: Paging Network
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Governor Blames Traveler’s Death on Poor Cell CoverageEarlier this year, northern Maine resident Arthur Brissette died on the side of the road after his car became stuck in a snowbank. Now, Maine Gov. Paul LePage is speaking out against the Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC) regarding their response to Brissette’s death, blaming the quality of cell phone coverage and wireless 911 availability in northern Maine. The Fiddlehead Focus reported during the incident this January, Brissette tried over a dozen times to reach emergency services, but his cell phone never picked up a signal. After walking a half mile to find help and attempting to dig out his vehicle, he collapsed. According to his widow, Lisa Brissette, unreliable cell service added nearly a half hour to the response time of emergency medical services, who were unable to revive her husband. Mrs. Brissette wrote a letter to Gov. LePage and U.S. Senators in the state, noting, “Even if there is no service in certain areas, 911 should always be available.” In fact, all wireless carriers in Maine are required to connect to the state’s 911 system. However, calls need to first reach the 911 system, which is an issue in areas where “dead zones” … an unfortunate but standard industry term … exist. In response to Mrs. Brissette’s letter, LePage questioned which agency could best evaluate the quality of 911 and cell phone service and was not pleased with the response by PUC General Counsel Michael Tannenbaum. “For a mobile phone user, the ability to connect to the wireless network depends on signal strength and line of sight range to the nearest cell provider tower. Signal strength of a user’s handset can also be affected by battery strength and handset type or conditions of use, such as dense forest, inside buildings or beside buildings, and even weather,” noted Tannenbaum. To blame Brissette’s death on such factors is “unconscionable,” wrote LePage. “It happened because cellular coverage in that area is spotty, unreliable and often nonexistent.” While Maine does have a statewide Next Generation 911 system that interfaces with all telephone service providers, areas with less than ideal coverage do exist, Tannenbaum conceded in his response to Morris. The challenge is that PUC has little control over the matter. “In low-density population areas, it is a business decision of the wireless company on how many towers to place for coverage, and where to point their directional antenna, and the company’s choices may leave weakly covered areas or even gaps,” he wrote. Tannenbaum said the PUC was developing mapping that depicts cell towers and approximate coverage areas. But the Maine PUC, “does not have the regulatory authority to order wireless providers to expand coverage with investments in a given area,” as wireless providers are regulated by the FCC rather than any state agency. As a next step, Tannenbaum noted that FirstNet is being deployed over the next few years. Telecom-Laid Fiber Network Doubles as Seismic MonitorScientists are hoping the fibers millions of people use to communicate can also be used to monitor incoming earthquakes. Although less sensitive than the seismometers currently used by scientists, Biondo Biondi, a professor of geophysics at Stanford University’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, says the fibers are an inexpensive method to monitor vast areas. “We can continuously listen to–and hear well–the Earth using pre-existing optical fibers that have been deployed for telecom purposes,” Biondi said. According to Laser Focus World, Biondi plans to turn San Francisco’s fiber network into an earthquake observatory. For the past year, Biondi has studied how the stresses of seismic events affect fiber strands, and how these movements can be used to gather information on the size and direction of these events. So far, researchers are using a three mile optical fiber loop on the Stanford, CA campus for studies. Laser interrogators monitor the cables, and gather the information the cable ‘sensors’ provide. Biondi claims, “Every meter of optical fiber in our network acts like a sensor and costs less than a dollar to install. You will never be able to create a network using conventional seismometers with that kind of coverage, density and price.” Optical fibers are also used to monitor pipelines and wells in the oil and gas industry. As light travels down these fibers, impurities create a backscatter signal that can be interpreted into quality information. An entire Bay Area-wide seismic network is the dream for Biondi and other scientists. The next step in the study is proving the technology can be used efficiently on an urban scale. |
Source: | Inside Towers newsletter | Courtesy of the editor of Inside Towers. |
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Selected portions [sometimes more — sometimes less] of the BloostonLaw Telecom Update and/or the BloostonLaw Private Users Update — newsletters from the Law Offices of Blooston, Mordkofsky, Dickens, Duffy & Prendergast, LLP — are reproduced in this section of The Wireless Messaging News with kind permission from the firm. The firm's contact information is included at the end of this section of the newsletter.
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