Author Topic: GRN paging  (Read 7837 times)

Offline straps

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GRN paging
« on: December 14, 2011, 02:14:28 PM »
Anyone able to shed light on the costs associated with setting up a GRN pager as well as monthly ongoing costs... (per unit would be helpful)

Am rather surprised by some figures that I have been provided - both set up and ongoing... (seemingly very excessive..?!?!)

Some additional insight would be appreciated...

Cheers
Shane

Timbo

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Re: GRN paging
« Reply #1 on: December 14, 2011, 05:06:44 PM »
Anyone able to shed light on the costs associated with setting up a GRN pager as well as monthly ongoing costs... (per unit would be helpful)

Am rather surprised by some figures that I have been provided - both set up and ongoing... (seemingly very excessive..?!?!)

Some additional insight would be appreciated...

Cheers
Shane

Last figure I was quoted by region was $30 per pager per month to have it 'active'

That is why it is so important to do a pager audit regularly,  so lost and damaged pagers can be removed from the database,  and not charged for, and these dollars can be spent elsewhere

MrT

Offline straps

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Re: GRN paging
« Reply #2 on: December 14, 2011, 08:55:53 PM »
Thanks Mr T..
Access fee wasnt so much my query but is ballpark with what I have been quoted.

More curious about pager hardware cost and intial set up cost.

At present I am being priced an exorbitant (one off) set up fee per unit - almost 2.5 - 3 times the hardware purchase cost.

Seems VERY excessive..???

Offline riptide

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Re: GRN paging
« Reply #3 on: December 14, 2011, 10:31:15 PM »
st john thinking of getting grn pagers straps?

Offline straps

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Re: GRN paging
« Reply #4 on: December 15, 2011, 06:50:28 AM »
Quote
st john thinking of getting grn pagers straps?

Discussions are being had to scope a replacement service for the now defunct Linkq Paging. Also scoping out Hutchinson / Vodafone..

Each with their pros and cons....

Offline FlameTrees

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Re: GRN paging
« Reply #5 on: December 15, 2011, 08:58:16 AM »
If looking at GRN, couldnt you just off shoot from SAAS? Or is that where the quote came from?
"is that negative as in yes, or negative as in no" - actual radio transmission from the field.......

Offline Darius

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Re: GRN paging
« Reply #6 on: December 15, 2011, 09:02:20 AM »
Last figure I was quoted by region was $30 per pager per month to have it 'active'

That is why it is so important to do a pager audit regularly,  so lost and damaged pagers can be removed from the database,  and not charged for, and these dollars can be spent elsewhere

MrT

it doesn't work like that, but some staff present those type of numbers as a simplified description. GRN paging is part of the overall GRN contract, managed by Justice (AGD) not CFS. CFS have a set sum taken from their budget by Justice and given to Motorola each year for everything GRN. I think paging (last I heard) was around $3 to $4 million per year total for CFS. So the $30pm figure comes from some people dividing the totals by the number of pagers issued to CFS but of course it's not that simple. If we add or remove pagers from the fleetmap up to a certain point we don't get charged any more or less but if CFS was to add say 500 extra pagers then Justice would likely increase the amount they take. I'm not convinced if numbers were reduced the charge would decrease but it's never happened yet so who knows.

Anyway I would look at hutchison/three/voda for paging for something like St John I reckon in preference to GRN.  GRN paging overall is good but has drawbacks, eg. it is expensive, it's only in SA (and slightly over the border) and there are limitations on what hardware (eg. pagers, decoders etc) you can use both imposed by the govt/motorola and due to the fact it's flex rather than the more common pocsag protocol, and programming changes are expensive if done under the contract (your organisation could do it themselves if you have eg. the apollo pagers though).

Offline mattb

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Re: GRN paging
« Reply #7 on: December 15, 2011, 02:32:33 PM »
The big advantage of GRN for an organisation like St John is always going to be coverage.

If you go with a commercial provider for paging you will still need an alternative for your country units where commercial paging doesn't exist. No doubt they could provide an SMS solution, but that still relies on phone coverage. This is where the GRN network is superior to any of the others, of course you have to pay for it though.

Do St John come under the Health Department portfolio ? If so then surely there is a deal to be done with one of the other SA Health departments to tack onto their deal.

The other advantage with the GRN is that if you have dual members in the SES or CFS (as I'm sure you would in some of the country regions) they could get a pager programmed with the St John capcodes and the CFS or SES ones (you probably just have to speak nicely to the right people).