https://urgentcomm.com/wp-content/themes/ucm_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Multimedia
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Galleries
    • IWCE’s Video Showcase
    • Product Guides
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • Commentary
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • All Things IWCE
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Resources
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • IWCE
    • Conference
    • Special Events
    • Exhibitor Listings
    • Premier Partners
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Register for IWCE
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookie Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • Mission Critical Technologies
    • TU-Auto
  • In the field
    • Back
    • In the field
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Internet of Things
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Call Center/Command
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Network Tech
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Operations
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Regulations
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • Organizations
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
Urgent Communications
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Omdia Crit Comms Circle Podcast
    • Galleries
    • IWCE’s Video Showcase
    • Product Guides
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • All Things IWCE
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
    • UC eZines
    • Sponsored content
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • Conference
    • Why Attend
    • Exhibitor Listing
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Join the Event Mailing List
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Cookie Policy
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • TU-Auto
  • newsletter
  • In the field
    • Back
    • Internet of Things
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Cybersecurity
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
acc.com

Alerting Systems


Swissphone partners with RACOM, seeks dealers to spread its digital-paging solution in the U.S.

  • Written by Donny Jackson
  • 24th September 2014
Swissphone announces a partnership with Iowa-based RACOM, which will be the first certified U.S. dealer to offer Swissphone’s DiCal Digital Paging Solution that features voice and text paging, as well as a system architecture that is unique to paging in the United States.

What is in this article?

  • Swissphone partners with RACOM, seeks dealers to spread its digital-paging solution in the U.S.
  • Swissphone partners with RACOM, seeks dealers to spread its digital-paging solution in the U.S.

Swissphone partners with RACOM, seeks dealers to spread its digital-paging solution in the U.S.

Swissphone recently announced a partnership with Iowa-based RACOM, which will be the first certified U.S. dealer to offer Swissphone’s DiCal Digital Paging Solution that features voice and text paging, as well as a system architecture that is unique to paging in the United States.

Swissphone is popular in Europe—the company has built 160 paging systems in Germany that support more than 1 million pagers—and hopes to build on that success in the United States, particularly targeting fire and EMS departments that rely on pagers to notify personnel of emergencies, according to Marco Stadler, Swissphone’s managing director of North America and chief marketing officer.

“We are the market leader by far in Europe, so it’s not a new system,” Stadler said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “It’s just new to the U.S.”

RACOM has sold Swissphone pagers for year, but the dealer quickly was intrigued when Swissphone officials said they wanted to bring the company’s digital-paging network solution to the U.S., particularly when all other aspects of communications are moving from analog to digital, according to Mike Miller, president and CEO of RACOM Critical Communications.

“The way we do [paging in the U.S.], of course, is we stick a paging transmitter up 300 feet or more, and we scream as loud as we can—and we use as few of those sites as we need to get the coverage that we want,” Miller said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “In Europe, the architecture is completely different. There are more base stations mounted lower to the ground—more like a cellular telephone company would build its infrastructure—and each one of those base stations is much less expensive than what we typically pay for in the U.S.

“Then, those base stations talk to each other and are simulcast. So, it’s almost like a mesh network, with all of these base stations talking to one another and then simulcasting out over the coverage area.”

The timing is ideal to introduce a new paging system into the marketplace, Miller said.

“Most places just narrowbanded their VHF fire paging base station, and their coverage just fell off of a cliff,” he said. “So, we’ve got lots of fire public safety with completely inadequate fire-paging coverage, and they’re all looking for a different solution. They want at least the coverage they had before narrowbanding, and not a lot of them were satisfied with that to begin with.

“Customer have demanded that we start looking for other solutions, and Swissphone came to us with a solution that just made a lot of sense. First, it was digital. Second, it was simulcast.”

After recently deploying a traditional paging system in an Iowa county that cost more than $300,000, RACOM had its engineers model a Swissphone paging system to cover the same area, Miller said.

“Our estimates were that it would take 12 or 13 transmitters—almost double [the seven transmitters used in the traditional architecture], because you are lower power and lower down—but the price would be about the same or maybe even 5% less,” Miller said. “So we felt that financially it makes sense, operationally it makes sense, and we’re going to get some customer demand from it.”

With the Swissphone DiCal solution, connectivity between base stations is done solely via radio link, removing the costs and complications associated with backhaul, Stadler said. In fact, the same UHF or VHF frequency that supports signaling to the end user also can support monitoring, he said.

“You don’t need multiple frequencies and a lot of licenses,” Stadler said. “You just need one frequency—you can do the alerting and the monitoring over this frequency, and everything is done over the air.”

1 | 2 |
Swissphone partners with RACOM, seeks dealers to spread its digital-paging solution in the U.S.
Tags: Fire/EMS First Responders Alerting Systems Narrowbanding News Public Safety System Design System Installation News

One comment

  1. Avatar Anonymous 25th September 2014 @ 2:06 pm
    Reply

    This is bound to fail for the
    This is bound to fail for the very reasons that are pointed out as “benefits:” proprietary. Having gone through that battle with 800 MHz P25 systems, few agencies are ever going to get involved with THAT again! In our area, narrowbanding resulted in almost no loss of coverage. There’s an opening here for another manufacturer to introduce analog paging using modern design techniques that will produce a top performing receiver at less than $300. It’s being done already in two-way radio from Asian sources.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

To leave a comment login with your Urgent Comms account:

Log in with your Urgent Comms account

Or alternatively provide your name, email address below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • Swissphone partners with RACOM, seeks dealers to spread its digital-paging solution in the U.S.
  • Swissphone partners with RACOM, seeks dealers to spread its digital-paging solution in the U.S.
  • Swissphone partners with RACOM, seeks dealers to spread its digital-paging solution in the U.S.
  • Swissphone partners with RACOM, seeks dealers to spread its digital-paging solution in the U.S.

Commentary


How 5G is making cities safer, smarter, and more efficient

26th January 2023

3GPP moves Release 18 freeze date to March 2024

18th January 2023

Do smart cities make safer cities?

  • 1
6th January 2023
view all

Events


UC Ezines


IWCE 2019 Wrap Up

13th May 2019
view all

Twitter


UrgentComm

AT&T becoming a “public-safety company” with FirstNet, NG911 work, exec says dlvr.it/Sj8FXL

9th February 2023
UrgentComm

Command-injection bug in Cisco industrial gear opens devices to complete takeover dlvr.it/Sj6X3l

8th February 2023
UrgentComm

AR-based next-gen maps aim to rebalance detail and simplicity dlvr.it/Sj4gdM

7th February 2023
UrgentComm

Vodafone UK starts ‘risky’ shift to 5G standalone dlvr.it/Sj4dPJ

7th February 2023
UrgentComm

ChatGPT may be fastest-growing app of all time, UBS Says dlvr.it/Sj4NfL

7th February 2023
UrgentComm

Public-safety coalition renews efforts to secure federal NG911 funding dlvr.it/ShwGfn

4th February 2023
UrgentComm

Newscan: Cyberattacks on DoE national labs draw lawmaker scrutiny dlvr.it/Shvpw3

3rd February 2023
UrgentComm

The shine begins to wear off 5G private wireless dlvr.it/Shth0P

3rd February 2023

Newsletter

Sign up for UrgentComm’s newsletters to receive regular news and information updates about Communications and Technology.

Expert Commentary

Learn from experts about the latest technology in automation, machine-learning, big data and cybersecurity.

Business Media

Find the latest videos and media from the market leaders.

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our digital and print audiences? Learn more here.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • American City & County
  • IWCE
  • Light Reading
  • IOT World Today
  • Mission Critical Technologies
  • TU-Auto

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Events
  • Careers

FOLLOW Urgent Comms ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2023 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.