Cell phones or radios?

[Louie_Hampton]

My last job in Dallas, we used Nextel phones with the two way feature to communicate with the crews and the office. My new job, we use two way, truck based radios.

One of the things given to me to figure out, is what will be the most effective, efficient, and economical method to communicate with the crews. What problems should we anticipate with the new system and how best to impliment.

I'd appreciate any stories, ideas or thoughts on what your using. Specifically how it works, or doesn't work, and what you would change if you could.

If it helps to know, three sales/support units, ~15 production units.
Louie Hampton

 

[Toparboring]

We use the phones with walkie talkie cab. through vrision wireless. Nextel in this area is something wierd some dead spots for them and not others. All trucks have radios in them as a back up or first thing gig.
We are small and alot of the time we are out in the boonies and speaker phones are good. then again the radios in the trucks let us get the gang together for lunch or help on a job if a crew is free. the one thing the we have on our phones is a GPS 911 deal this lets us dial 911 and flips to a speaker and gives the cops the location of the emergency without even telling them .

 

[Hammer]

If you can use the cell phone option, Nextel or Verizon. In the end it will be cheaper due to the cost of radios and the limited coverage radios give. if you want more coverage you must put up more $$$.

 

[Eric_E]

The advantage to cell phone is that you can call outside of your "network", with a radio you are limited. The advantage here is you can call clients and emergency crews when needed. The disadvantage is personal use of company phones which can add up quickly in $ and hassles.

 

[NickfromWI]

I had nextel for about 2 years, and worked at one place that had them mounted in the trucks.

Do you really think they are worth it? If I'm not mistaken, the only thing you save is the few seconds it takes for the phone to ring and the other person to pick up, but once they do pick up, isn't the conversation FASTER on a phone then on the radio?

I hated that with nextel you couldn't turn off the chirp-chirp sound!

love
nick

 

[Louie_Hampton]

Nick,

The place I worked that used Nextel, I'm told, chose that system based on price and convienence, not speed of communication. It gave them the option of only having two-way activated on phones where there was a concern that the cell phone capability might be abused, and the freedom from having to closely scrutinize the phone charges each month. The down-side was that two-way talk wasn't as clear, it seemed to need more signal strength to get a message through. That and we started having more dropped calls in the last few months.

The company where I work now, the owner likes the mobile units as he can monitor the radio traffic and has a sense of whats going on on a daily basis. That would be lost on a more private system using a nextel or nextel-like set-up. We would gain portability, properties we work here in St. Louis and surrounding areas are a lot farther from the street than what I'm used to in Dallas. It can be a haul to run back to the truck to make a radio call.

Something will need to be done though as I'm told that our current system is getting long in the tooth and starting to cost more in repair. The cost of up-grading and replacing our current system Vs. the benefits (if any) of changing over is what I have been asked to find.

Louie Hampton