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We know that many of our customers are thinking about using cell phones rather than digital paging.  Doctors like that they can load all kinds of apps to enhance their wireless capabilities.  Many like the two-way communications available with a cell phone. There is no doubt that cell phones offer more features and capabilities than paging. 

But the one thing that most people forget about, when thinking about cell phones vs. pagers, is that the device is first and foremost, an URGENT COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM.  Its a way for dispatch to reach you, with vital information, in emergency situations. 

If electrical power is lost, how long will your cell phone last, before you need to recharge it.  What if power is out?  Did you recently recharge it, or has it been a while. These issues do not typically affect pagers, because they use AA or AAA batteries, which last for several weeks or months, depending on usage. Even if they run out, they are easily replaced with new ones for another months usage.

When do you need this capability most? It’s during an area-wide disaster, like a hurricane, earthquake, tornado, etc.  Well, if you have read the newspaper or your Google news lately, regarding the tornadoes, hurricanes and even the earthquakes on the East Coast, you have read that cell phone systems typically fail in these situations.  The reason is very simple.  Cell phone systems are designed for average day to day usage, not for worst case, URGENT COMMUNICATIONS scenarios.

When an area-wide disaster hits, have you tried using your cell phone?  The system gets overloaded with everyone trying to call their loved ones.  This is not an acceptable URGENT COMMUNICATIONS system for public safety, for utilities, or for hospitals.

This is why you need a paging system.  Paging systems are typically designed for worst case throughput situations, like area-wide emergencies.  And, they use high powered transmitters and simulcast technology, which is not part of cell phone systems design.  These features make paging systems much more reliable.

Paging technology has been around for over 40 years now.  It should still part of your Urgent Communications consideration because it works and it works very well.

SONIK is the premier paging system provider in the world. Our paging system solutions are used by the following customer types:

Public Safety
Utility (Voice and Digital Paging, Telemetry- LMC)
Healthcare (Hospitals, EMS)
Education (Colleges, Universities, High Schools)
Federal Military Bases
Manufacturing Plants

Public Safety

There is no other solution available today, that offers the level of cost-effective, timely, emergency notification, that you get with a wireless paging system. Paging should be included in any public safety, homeland security, or emergency notification communications solution.

• Fast throughput
• Guaranteed coverage
• Large group calls
• Variety of input options
• With accurate data

These are the foundation of a well designed paging system. No other wireless system available today allows for emergency notification to large numbers of people, within minutes or seconds of an event.

SONIK is the one company that understands the critical performance issues for public safety communications systems and how they relate to paging. Our engineers have a great deal of experience designing, installing, and integrating turnkey paging system solutions for police, fire, and EMS.

Fast throughput:
SONIK engineers can guarantee system throughput, for any size system. We have in-depth knowledge of each digital paging protocol and can design the system that provides the best throughput for your requirements.

Guaranteed RF coverage:
Our engineers can provide upfront propagation analyses, that accurately predict the quality of RF coverage, “on the street” or “in-buildings”, anywhere in your City, County, or State. We can also back it up with documented coverage acceptance testing after completed installation.

Large Group Calls:
One of the distinct advantages of paging systems is the ability to send a single message, to a predetermined group of individuals, fast. With proper planning, hundreds or thousands of personnel, can receive an emergency message within seconds after your dispatcher receives the call for help. Groups can also be developed dynamically as needed. No other wireless communications system is as efficient as a paging system for sending information to a large group of people in a short period of time.

Variety of Input Options:
P aging systems allow for a wide variety of ways for someone to initiate a page. Anyone can send a numeric message or a voice message from any telephone or cell phone. An alphanumeric message can be sent from anyone’s PC. A dispatcher can send an important E911 message right from their CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch) screen. The paging system can be setup to allow for any of these input methods or they can also be restricted if so desired by the system administrator.

Accurate Data:
SONIK engineers are the most experienced in the industry to guarantee accurate data is received. There are several issues that can impact the accuracy of the data received. RF Coverage or a lack of it, can cause messages to be received incorrectly. This can be caused by improper paging system design, poor antenna system design, lack of adequate power output, or even lack of enough transmitter sites.

Simulcast vs. Sequential Transmission:
There are many reasons why you may choose one or the other, but if you choose a simulcast system, please make sure that your vendor has experience setting up simulcast paging systems, before you hire them. 

• Simulcast distortion can result in messages that are unintelligible.
• Some transmitters do not offer adequate frequency stability for simulcast.
• Simulcast timing is not something to take lightly.

Few engineers truly understand how to properly setup simulcast systems. It requires the right combination and location of transmitters, frequency reference, remote site links, and accurate timing to ensure a properly designed simulcast system. SONIK engineers specialize in these types of systems and have installed many simulcast systems across the country.

Every day there is a new wireless data technology, based on a new digital protocol. Some work well, some don’t.   With paging systems, you can be assured that the protocol being used, whether POCSAG, FLEX, or ReFLEX, has been tried and tested for many years. There is no doubt that paging works and it works well. This can’t always be said for some of the new technologies being offered today.

If you are a public safety agency and you require a new paging system, or if you have a legacy paging system, that may need to be tuned or upgraded, contact SONIK.   We can help. Our engineers have over 25 years of experience and are already familiar with the equipment you have, no matter how old. We can provide you with the most cost-effective solution to meet your specific requirements.

The only question is, should you purchase your own paging system, or lease. For helpful information on this topic, click here.

Utilities

Paging has been used by public and private utilities for years now. The reason is quite simple- it’s a cost effective, practical means of notifying field crews of job assignments, routine, day-to-day messages, and most importantly, emergency messages.

• Most utilities operations cover fairly large geographic areas.
• Utilities operations require field service crews to be mobile most of the time.
• Paging systems typically allow for better coverage than typical land mobile or mobile data systems.
• User devices, the pagers themselves, are much less costly than portable radios, mobile or portable data terminals, by a significant amount. Digital pagers typically sell for less than $100. With hundreds or thousands of field service personnel, paging offers you significant cost savings vs. other wireless technologies. With PDT’s typically selling for $2,000 or more, for 500 field service workers, savings could equal $1,000,000.00 or more and be less reliable!
• Utilities rely on wireless communications and paging has proven to be a reliable wireless messaging solution for the past 30 years.
• Intrinsically Safe pagers are available for nuclear power plants. Alternative communications, like cell phones, are not offered with IS certification.

SONIK engineers have a great deal of experience interfacing our paging systems to your existing CAD, LAN/WAN, and telco systems. We are experts in multi-site, simulcast systems, with high throughput requirements.

If you have a legacy system, but require replacement of existing transmitters, or other major components, or if you are looking to enhance the RF coverage of your existing system, or increase the capacity, SONIK can help you. We will visit with you, analyze your requirements and your existing paging system and prepare a report indicating the problem areas in your system, with recommendations on how to improve the performance.

If you decide that our recommendations make sense, then we can also follow through with a budgetary proposal and with implementation. Don’t worry, our pricing is the most competitive in the industry . Ask us to prove it with a budgetary proposal. You won’t be sorry! We look forward to hearing from you.

HealthCare

Hospitals have long recognized that paging is a cost-effective, reliable means of sending emergency medical messages, code blue alerts, and confidential patient information to doctors, nurses, bio-med techs, maintenance personnel, and ambulances, no matter where they are.

Are you looking for integration with your dispatching software, LAN/WAN, telco systems or do you have an ERP system?

Are you looking for more from your paging terminal and want to replace it with a Message Gateway, or are you planning on purchasing a Message Gateway and need information on replacing your paging system to interface to a third party Gateway?

We know how to interface to all these systems and have years of experience doing it.

SONIK engineers are fully capable of designing a new system or recommending the best replacement or upgrade equipment for any size or type of paging system.

Our engineers are intimately familiar with the most popular makes and models of legacy paging equipment including Motorola and Glenayre. We are also a reseller of Zetron Paging equipment and can design and install a completely new system for you. We can also offer you client/server application software to enhance your paging system connectivity to include a variety of different inputs and outputs.

We can also provide all the necessary services you require to properly install and maintain your system for years to come.

For infrastructure equipment, for a complete new system, or if you just want to purchase pagers, give us a call. We can help and we can do it with the best pricing available.

Education

Whether you are a university, a small college, or a high school campus, SONIK has a paging system solution for you. We are experienced in installations and support for systems of all sizes.

Your requirements for paging are not unique. You are looking for a reliable, cost-effective method of notifying individuals and groups of people easily and quickly.

Paging is the answer and small, campus type systems are very cost-effective vs other system solutions.

Cell phones can result in unwanted long distance phone charges and do not allow for notifying large groups of people in emergency situations. Portable data terminals are typically too expensive and walkie-talkie’s do not provide any privacy.

Pagers are inexpensive, they are reliable, and the digital alphanumeric pagers are private, allowing for confidential or sensitive information to be easily sent to one or several individuals, quickly. They are also unobtrusive, working well for the teaching staff, who don’t want to be disturbed during a lecture, or the administrative, or maintenance who also don’t want to disturb the quiet during classes.

SONIK can integrate a variety of different components best suited for your specific requirements, at the best price. We can guarantee radio coverage and we can do it at the best price. We are Zetron resellers and experts in all their paging products.

Call us today, even if you are just looking for budgetary pricing. We can help!

Federal Markets/Military Bases/Homeland Security

SONIK is proud to assist our government in providing reliable, secure wireless communications systems for a variety of applications. Our PTX-150 all-digital paging transmitter is one of the most reliable, best performing, NTIA, narrow-band, compliant paging transmitters available today.

It is on the VA’s list of approved transmitters for narrowband operation. In fact, all transmitters and base stations offered by SONIK meet NTIA narrowband (12.5KHz) operation requirements. This is why our products are used throughout the world by our military and the VA.

We can supply compliant, narrowband transmitters, or any other paging infrastructure equipment for your new, replacement or upgrade requirements. No paging system project is beyond the scope of our capabilities.

As a Zetron reseller, we can provide a turnkey system solutions for Homeland Security, Military Base, or VA Hospital requirements. Our experienced engineers and technicians will be happy to visit your site, to study an existing system problem and recommend and implement a solution, or to design a new paging system from scratch. Contact us if you need budgetary pricing as well.

Call us, we can help!

Manufacturing Plants

High-speed, efficient manufacturing is the only way its done these days. Along with this business model, your communications must also be high-speed, efficient, and reliable.

Radio paging is the most cost-effective way to communicate with staff who are out on the production floor or busy outside the building. Pagers are inexpensive, reliable and effective in receiving normal every day messages or emergency alerts. For really important emergency or disaster messages that need to be sent out to a large group of personnel, fast, group paging is the only effective communications solution.

In addition to pagers for alerting people, LED signs located in high noise areas of the manufacturing plant, receiving messages from our PageLink paging data receivers, can signal personnel, where noise is so high, no audible alert can be heard.

Machines can be turned on or off remotely, by sending a paging command to our PageLink paging data receiver, with 8 digital I/O’s. In many cases, this is more cost effective than installing and running cable to each machine, but always the only solution for remote machines, where cable connection is simply not practical.

SONIK can provide any equipment required to replace or upgrade major components in an existing paging system. We are experts in legacy equipment and compatibility. We can also design a new paging system, from scratch, and provide all the equipment and necessary services for a turnkey paging system solution, customized for your specific requirements.

Inputs include:

• building alarm system- to send a page if a security door is opened, as an example
• fire alarm system- any fire alarm will also automatically send a preprogrammed alphanumeric message to a supervisor, or fire response team, with the location and helpful information.
• machine alarms- notify a supervisor if a production machine fails, with a message containing the location and nature of the failure.
• telephone system- send a page from any telephone in your system
• LAN/WAN system-  allows for any user on a PC on your network to initiate a page, or from outside your network, if desired.  Don’t know where Fred is and need him urgently? Send him a page to call you or meet you.

SONIK has worked with companies like Rockwell Automation, to provide the right paging system for a major automobile manufacturing plant and we can do it for your operation as well.

Call us. We can help.

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