Case Study: Regional Coastguard Service

Profile

A firm of well respected telecoms consultants approached ADTEC with a requirement to replace an ageing radio interface system. Ideally, they wanted to combine radio calls and telephone calls in a conference type facility. After various discussions, it was determined that with a few modifications, ADTEC's TeleBridge could do the job. The consultant ended up looking good and the customer is more than happy with the new system.

Technical Issues/Challenges

A system was required which the main control area of regional coastguard activities to simply combine telephone and radio calls. This is unusual as nowadays, most telephone calls are handled digitally, whereas radio is typically an analogue four wire system using Push-to-talk (PTT) technology. Because of PTT, a time delay had to be built in to the system so callers would not miss the first part of a conversation.

Solution

Because TeleBridge started life as a digital multiplexor, it still has various analogue interfaces including two wire and four wire. The standard EMU card can take six circuits of four wire plus E&M (as commonly used by radio) and mix them seamlessly with digital conversations in the bridge. By adding a short time delay and a few other minor modifications, the system was ready to meet the challenge.

Benefits

The Coastguard service can carry on their work as they wanted to - rather than have to adapt to a new way which did not suit them. After a few minor fine tuning tweaks, the system was run out in a live situation and the customer professed to be very happy with the solution.

Now there is a strong possibility that other Coastguard regions will follow suit and upgrade their services as well. As is also the case with other special TeleBridge installations, normal telephone conferencing comes a standard extra service - thereby enhancing the overall effectiveness of the system.

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