Many organizations such as manufacturers, retailers, schools, car dealerships, medical offices — and the list goes on — need to broadcast messages to multiple employees. Naturally, phoning each individual employee is tedious, time consuming, ineffective, and can even be hazardous if the message is of an emergency or urgent nature. Fortunately, that is where IP Paging enters the picture and avoids all of these problems.
What is IP Paging?
IP Paging uses specially-designed speakers, which attach to a hosted VoIP phone system just like any other endpoint. Each speaker has a unique and designated extension. When supervisors, managers, or any other authorized user wants to broadcast an announcement, they simply:
- Log into an easy-to-use web interface.
- Select the speaker they want to use (or use a helpful device locator if they aren’t sure where it is).
- Call the extension from any device on the network.
The speaker auto-answers the call, plays a special page tone, and then the authorized user simply announces their message (e.g. “Please remember there is a health and safety meeting at 4:00pm today in the warehouse” or anything else).
Multicast Paging
The above example refers to broadcasting an announcement to one specific location. But what if you want to broadcast the same announcement to multiple locations?
The good news is that there is no need to call each speaker one-by-one and repeat the same message. Instead, two or more speakers can be called simultaneously for Multicast Paging. There are NO limits to how many speakers can be called, which is ideal for broadcasting announcements throughout the entire organization or campus.
Zone Paging
What if you want to broadcast an announcement to multiple speakers, but don’t want to manually choose which ones to use? In that case, you’d simply use Zone Paging to target a specific area that has two or more speakers (e.g. warehouse + staff lunchroom).
Automated Announcements & Tones
If your organization regularly broadcasts the same message(s), you can easily schedule automated announcements with audio such as bells, whistles, music, and so on. For example, customers in a retail environment can be informed that the store will be closing in 30 minutes, students on a school campus can be alerted to the start of class, and so on.
Emergency Paging
In emergency situations, time is of the essence and every second matters. To help keep people and property safe, IP paging lets you configure pre-recorded emergency announcements (e.g. inclement weather warning, building lockdown, evacuation, etc.). To broadcast the announcement along with a special loud ringtone, you just need to call the designated extension.
In addition, you can install emergency push buttons throughout your organization, such as in the employee parking lot. Based on the settings, when the button is pressed the system will either launch a two-way communication with security staff and/or dial an extension and play a pre-recorded announcement (e.g. “security staff required in parking lot B – code 99”). IP paging can also be integrated with surveillance cameras and door access networks.
