Case Histories › Sedgewall Communications Group

Critical paging network switch goes without a hitch

The Sedgewall Communications Group specialises in the design, manufacture and integration of electronic and communications systems and is a key supplier to the emergency services, Ministry of Defence and other government departments, as well as to telecommunications companies in the UK and overseas.
It was responsible for providing on-going maintenance for the 02 Paging System at BNFL in Sellafield - one of the largest nuclear engineering centres in the world - and when the system needed upgrading, it brought in Autopage to assist on the software messaging side.

Problem

Gary Littledyke, Group Sales Manager at Sedgewall, says: "The O2 national paging network ceased operations in December 2004 and as a result BNFL had to find an alternative carrier. Vodafone Paging was selected and Sedgewall was tasked with providing the interface between the existing Zetron Paging Encoder infrastructure and the Vodafone Paging network."
He explains: "The new system was configured and installed within four weeks and went live with an immediate switch over. It was initially configured so that all paging messages were transmitted simultaneously on both the Vodafone Paging and O2 networks by using the functionality of the Autopage Software."

Solution

The output line of the Zetron equipment was split to give two outputs instead of the single one usually used. One of the inputs continued to be fed into the existing O2 system infrastructure, while the other went into the Autopage control PC. The Autopage software took the transmission from the Zetron Encoder and translated it in to the equivalent new number for the new Vodafone pagers. The two systems ran alongside each other for about six weeks until the users had confidence that everything was working satisfactorily.
"At this point we simply removed the splitter we had inserted and the Autopage software was reconfigured so that the pager numbers were passed directly through instead of being translated."

Gary Littledyke says: "This was a very successful solution and the system has been up and running now for over a year with no downtime so far at all."

Sedgewall also provided a pagefail alarm in the installation so that BNFL would be aware immediately there were delays in the passing of paging messages.
"This was the second major project that Sedgewall has completed with the assistance of Autopage and their excellent knowledge and experience have proved invaluable in ensuring we have provided a well-designed and reliable solution for the end user" Gary Littledyke says.
"Wherever we are asked to carry out a major project like this that involves software messaging, we always look to Autopage to partner with us in providing a solution so the customer gets the benefit of the knowledge and experience of the team at Autopage as part of the total package."