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A resilient and effective future in paging
Paging - is there still a requirement in public safety?
With the growing usage of SMS messaging, are paging systems likely to become obsolete in the face of mobile phone technology or will they remain a reliable and cost effective means of communication within the mission critical arena? Outlining this very point, The BAPCO Journal takes a closer look at the importance that both wide and local area paging systems play and examines how the systems are likely to develop in the future...
The unfortunate events in London on 7th July 2005 demonstrated the importance of effective communications in responding to and managing major incidents and the increasing role that mobile messaging plays in emergency and business continuity plans.
Whilst events demonstrated the growing role and acceptance of text messaging for critical messaging, it also reinforced the role paging still has to play in communicating vital information quickly. Paging's inherent broadcast capability and protection from public peak traffic loads during such emergencies, ensures that even though the paging network experienced record traffic levels on 7/7, messaging was well within capacity, and the delivery of critical messages in a timely manner was unaffected. This mirrors the findings of several reports into communications during the 9/11 disaster in New York, which highlighted the critical role paging played.
Michael Cassidy, president of the London Chamber of Commerce, reinforced this point in an article in the Times soon after the July 7th attacks in London, Cassidy commented "...firms needed to be able to communicate through a secure paging system in the event of further attacks...”
Furthermore, the frequencies used by pagers and their infrastructure are governed and have less tendencies to interfere with sensitive electronic equipment, hence the reliance of hospitals on pagers. In addition to which, since pagers can also be made intrinsically safe, for use in hazardous environments such as petrol refineries there will remain a need for such a reliable and resilient form of communication.
Discussing how pagers can remain effective with the growing usage of SMS messaging, Paul Williams, Lynxpro pointed out, “Ownership is a fundamental reason why paging will remain a major requirement within the mission critical arena, which ensures system reliability and performance.
“In the case of local area paging the entire system is owned by the user, therefore there is no dependency on a third party to provide the service. We also know from experience that in the case of emergency either the third partynetwork fails to operate because of lack of capacity of in severe situations is closed down as happens when there is a risk of a third party network being used to create the emergency, such as remote detonation of bombs etc. Whilst these instances are thankfully rare, the possibility does remove the ultimate reliability of such systems to operate when they are needed most.”
Pagers were cited in the London Regional Resilience Forum Multi-Agency Debrief report, (as published on 23rd September 2006). Key elements such as: Lessons (page 7) “Responders must not rely on mobile phones for critical functions in a crisis. Emergency responders need to have a dedicated communications that will work in an emergency.”
''Pagers: so long as they are sufficiently independent of other networks, consider using pagers for alerting and mobilisation, including preset pager groups, where this function is critical''
Progress since 7 July - London Ambulance Service (page 27) “LAS managers have all been given radio pagers which are resilient in a major incident”
What happened to the networks? (page 42) “Pagers: They can enable messages to get through when mobile phone networks are congested. COLP (City of London Police) successfully used its pager alert scheme on 7 July to provide key business personnel with incident progress information.”
Recommendations (page 44) “Pagers: So long as they are sufficiently independent of other networks consider using pagers for alerting and mobilisation”
Commenting on the report, Chris Jones, managing director, PageOne said, “PageOne welcomes the findings of the report and reiterates that paging still plays a very important role in providing real time information to many organisations today.”
is SMS technology impacting on paging?
Discussing the growth of SMS technology and the impact it has had on paging, Jones stated, “SMS text messaging is playing an increasing role within business. Businesses have realised that a resilient communication strategy, uses a combination of technologies such as paging and SMS. As a disaster will inevitably exploit weaknesses in any communications strategy, which is over reliant on a single network or technology - landlines can be damaged, mobile networks can be overloaded.
“It is thus crucial that businesses ensure that they have effective plans for managing and responding to emergency, disaster or even system failure. Many organisations are indeed currently reviewing their communication plans.”
Williams added, “The technology used by SMS follows the same technology as radio paging. The advances in the use of mobile telephony has greatly benefited radio paging systems, which have developed at the same pace as mobile phones. In the case of ‘On-site’ radio paging, such systems offer a number of advantages compared to SMS messages. For example, ‘On-Site’ paging systems are owned and controlled by the user who has complete control over the system. Messages are transmitted and received almost instantly. Unlike SMS?systems where the volume of transmissions at any one time may delay up to several hours the receipt of the transmitted message. Further more the on-going cost of on-site paging is very little as the cost per message is zero!”
Also commenting, Peter Moss, product manager, Stanley Security Solutions’ staff protection systems said, “The growth in SMS technology has clearly had an impact on paging, offering significant advantages not least by enabling people to reply to a message using the same device. The one potential downside to SMS is that network coverage may not always be as good but then the extent of wide area pager coverage was often unpredictable.
“I would argue that whilst wide area paging faces a difficult future, there are still major opportunities and benefits for on-site paging, even in the mobile phone era, for example in hospitals, prisons and secure units as well as in shopping malls, factories or any application where deaf people need to be alerted to fire alarms.
“In the hospital environment for example where both emergency and routine calls are made using pagers, one major benefit over SMS is that you have guaranteed control over the radio link frequency. Radio frequency at these sites is controlled by OFCOM and it is able to grant or refuse licence applications to ensure that pager messages are not subject to interference.
“In contrast, GSM communication is often compromised at the very time when it's needed most, because in an emergency everyone automatically reaches for their mobile phone and networks struggle to cope. The aftermath of the London tube bombs was a classic example of this,” he concluded.
key drivers for paging systems
Discussing what the key drivers for paging systems are, Jones explained, “Using VHF frequencies and based on narrow band broadcast technology, paging is based on a worldwide standard, and with little to go wrong has consistently paid its way. Pagers were never subject to the WAP or MMS phenomena of being a technology before its time, or a solution looking for a problem. Paging did what it said on the box, delivered one way alphanumeric messages with an extremely high degree of coverage and probability that the message would arrive.
“Pagers are simple, use little energy, and need very few transmitters; the technology is low cost and reliable. What's more, coverage far exceeds that of mobile technology and most importantly, if your application involves receiving alphanumeric content that is critical to the task, there is no better way than paging.”
In fact we are subject to paging technologies every day, but are seldom aware of it. Many modern bus stops with LCD displays showing routes and times before each bus are based on paging. Modern train timetables use paging as does the streaming technology showing stock prices or sports scores. Whilst these are the more obvious examples, there exists a huge market in both commercial and public sector projects. Any application that responds to a trigger to pump out critical information is generally a paging application. Hospitals use pagers to contact medical staff; the railway network uses pagers to inform engineering, maintenance and management about the movement of trains; water authorities use automatic measuring and trigger mechanisms to alert personnel to the changes in river and reservoir levels. Moving away from public infrastructure projects, we find paging used in food storage and retail to alert staff of temperature changes in freezing and chilling boxes, and business continuity and disaster recovery companies rely on paging as the alternative to easily destroyed mobile networks.
Williams adds, “The key drivers behind paging systems are mainly, cost efficiency and reliability. Where a paging system is used in hospitals as a 'bleeper' system to summons attendants or where the system is used as a fire alarm paging, the messages must be transmitted and received almost instantly. Any delay could be life threatening.”
the evolution of paging
Since the events of 7/7 PageOne has worked closely with both public service agencies and corporate businesses to assist them in reviewing and implementing robust business continuity broadcast messaging services. Many organisations have made a conscious decision to diversify their communications service provision such that their paging and messaging provider is independent of their mobile phone provider. And as a consequence PageOne has seen an increase in demand for both paging and SMS services that integrate together, giving enhanced resilience and flexibility for emergency and first responder solutions.
Looking at on-site paging, Moss suggests, “In terms of on-site paging, there has been a greater move over the past 12 months towards two way messaging. Many pagers now automatically send a return message confirming receipt and some also have optional reply facilities so they can indicate whether response has also been actioned.
“Other pagers are also able to transmit signals which pinpoint the precise location of their owner. Within prisons or high security units these can be particularly important enabling prison officers or security guards to alert colleagues to an incident or attack and prompt immediate response to the precise location.
“Because of the extreme accuracy of location, they can even determine whether a guard is inside or outside a cell, an important counter to, for example, prisoner bullying allegations.
“The sophistication of these pagers also provides a useful audit trail post-emergency or incident. The pager data can establish precisely when messages were sent, received and responded to, ensuring much greater accountability.”
In agreement with the continual evolution of paging, Williams added, “Paging systems are continually evolving, the two drivers of this evolution are new technology as it is developed and by the users themselves in their expectancy as to exactly what they want a paging system to do.
“Smaller and more compact pagers for example, The advancement of multi-line messages shown on the pager screen. The integration of paging into existing systems such as the development of automated reminders in an office environment utilising existing infrastructure such computer networking. The instant contact of waiting customers in the hospitality sector.”
and to the future...
PageOne believes that paging has a number of key benefits that ensure it will continue to play a significant role in the UK telecommunications market in years to come. These include:
Cost effectiveness: PageOne's paging services offer considerable savings over other types of messaging services for those customers that send a large number of messages per month. PageOne charges its customers a standard monthly rate for paging that includes messages costs. This represents a significant saving for many clients.
Unique broadcast ability: The unique capability of PageOne's paging network guarantees that, if a message is sent to a number of recipients, then all of those recipients will receive the message at the same time. It also guarantees the timing of the delivery of the message, with no arbitrary delays caused by its network, such as those that can occur when sending SMS messages. This can be vital in industries such as transport where rapid notification across several levels and sites is crucial when problems occur, and for organisations such as the emergency services, for whom immediate and simultaneous message transmission is key.
Independence of network: PageOne's paging network has complete independence from GSM and other public mobile phone networks. This is an extremely valuable asset and can prove crucial in disaster, accident and terrorist situations when mobile phone networks become quickly saturated with non-essential traffic, under which circumstances the paging network continues to provide customers with guaranteed reliability and access to key personnel.
Restricted environment usage: Unlike mobile phones, pagers can be used in restricted environments such as hospitals and computer rooms. This is crucial, not only to customers such as the NHS but also to customers such as the major communications companies.
For companies that select a messaging tool based on one or more of the above criteria, paging is the only option and thus it forms a key element of many companies' and public service organisations' communications strategies.
Integration: PageOne have moved beyond the simple text message and now, through its Oventus architecture, enables a mixture of paging, SMS, and email content to be delivered and managed via connectivity options such as secure VPN, IP and XML. Though the sophistication of such systems is an integration point where organisations with complex communications requirements can mix and match, the USP of paging still resides in its three core tenets: simplicity, stability and cost.
In concluding, Stanley Security Systems suggests that One of the future trends will be towards the use of Wi-Fi technology. Although this requires a certain amount of bandwidth, the type of short messages associated with paging should not require too much space provided the coverage is good enough.
Traditional on-site paging in which organisations maintain control over their own networks, fully licensed and regulated by OFCOM will, however, continue to be viable for many years yet to come.
Notes...
London Regional Resilience report
''Pagers: so long as they are sufficiently independent of other networks, consider using pagers for alerting and mobilisation, including preset pager groups, where this function is critical''
London Regional Resilience report
“Pagers: They can enable messages to get through when mobile phone networks are congested. COLP (City of London Police) successfully used its pager alert scheme on 7 July to provide key business personnel with incident progress information.”
PageOne
PageOne operates the only independent 'wide-area' paging network within the UK. Resilient and robust communications are a crucial part of any business continuity plan and when mobile phone networks were overwhelmed on 7/7, PageOne's messaging service proved itself a robust and reliable way for users to keep in touch. Many organisations who in responding to and affected by events of 7/7 successfully used PageOne paging and SMS messaging services to deliver timely instruction and information alerts, including the COLP alert scheme which has in excess of 2,000 members.
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