Learn how the Legacy Paging Interface or LPI from Singlewire Software can be used to connect InformaCast to legacy analog paging systems.
Transcript
INTERVIEWER: We’re talking with Ken Bywaters, Executive Vice President of Product Management. Ken, can you talk to us about the LPI or Legacy Paging Interface? What is this and what does it do?
KEN: Sure, so the LPI, you know, maybe we didn’t name it that, all that glamorous but this is what it does. For people with an existing paging system, an analog paging system, but that also have Cisco phones and desktops we’re using InformaCast to talk to those things, you want to be able to talk to your existing speakers as well. And there’s several ways to do this, but a fairly recent one, at least starting in Fall 2009 was the LPI. And the LPI is software. It’s separate from InformaCast and it allows you to connect InformaCast or ControlKom, for that matter to your existing paging system through software
And the key differences are, it’s a very clean set-up. So you can set up the LPI and have it connect to your existing paging system through an fxo or fxs port on your router. Any analog connection from CallManager to your paging system, we can take advantage of.
And beyond that we can also send zone information to that paging system. So a lot of the existing paging systems are zoned, I think they’re four zones or eight zones, and you use keys on your phone, DTMF maps to select which zone you’re talking to.
Within the LPI you can set all of that up. So we mimic all the zones so that you can just say, “Well, Zone 1 is this and Zone 2 is this. You know, East Wing, West Wing”, whatever. And then within InformaCast it all shows up as, you name it. East Wing of Building 1, West Wing of Building 1, things like that. And this way you don’t have to go to your phone and hit pound-1 to talk to that zone. You can send an InformaCast message, we connect to that zone and that paging system as well as send the message out to Cisco phones and desk tops and high beam speakers like we’ve always done.
And the way we’ve done it is, it’s synchronous so you don’t, it’s not two separate messages. We actually place a phone call to that existing paging system and stream the audio to it at the same time we stream the audio out to all of the devices on the IP network.
INTERVIEWER: This sounds like a great solution for an organization, a school, or a business that may be in an older facility but yet, want some of the modern conveniences or abilities of InformaCast. Is that where you’re seeing this go into?
KEN: Yeah, it’s going into almost every market that we serve but your example of schools is a good one. So a K-12 district, let’s just take a typical one. Let’s say they have 20 schools in the district. It’s a good bet that they’ve got multiple manufacturers of analog paging systems in those 20 schools. They might have three or four different manufacturers scattered around those 20 schools.
And no way to centrally manage their bell schedules, no way to get a message out, district-wide, or anything like that. With InformaCast and the LPI, you can bring all of those 20 schools online on the IP network using the LPI and then you centrally use InformaCast to manage all of your bell schedules or do a district-wide announcement.
So, for not very much money per school, you can immediately get district-wide notification and central bell management without any hardware or architectural changes. And that’s what’s difficult for schools. To change an existing paging system usually means changing the rack of equipment that was built many years ago or slopping other things in or running new cable. You don’t have to do any of those things. You can just do it all on software and get all the benefits that you would, if you built all new schools with all new cabling and IP speakers. Just use your existing infrastructure to get those benefits.
INTERVIEWER: So I’m assuming then, too, once a new facility would come online or be built, it’s just as easy then to wire that with Cat-5 and have a regular network-type installation and keep the functionality all in place. Is that the case?
KEN: Yep. People mix and match all the time. And it’s obviously completely cost-driven. In a new building, the cost of running copper wire through conduits and putting power supplies and amplifiers all in that network for dedicated analog paging system can actually end up being a lot more than just running simple Cat-5 to IP speakers.
So if you do have new construction mixed in with your existing buildings, your existing paging system, it’s easy to mix and match. And InformaCast doesn’t care. It looks all the same, to us.
INTERVIEWER: Now if I’m a school administrator or a building facility manager listening to this, what do I need to know? I mean, is this a proven technology? Is this something that can work and is working in existing buildings now?
KEN: Oh yeah, it’s working at many, many places. So, if you’re a facility manager, most people in that role are burdened with making changes to the system, knowing lots of different systems. You can have it, in K-12 in particular, if you have a, let’s say, a two hour delay, having to go to that school and make the change to that system, that can be very time consuming and burdensome.
So, again with this, with InformaCast and the LPI, you can centrally manage all of that. And it’s a very clean and very simple way to connect to your existing paging system. So you don’t have to do it, or what’s very common, you don’t have to pay another company to drive out and do it.
I’ve had a lot of customers who’ve said before we put this in, any time we made a change to our analog paging system, it cost us a minimum of $600, for every change.
So, with the LPI it was very clean and simple and now they can zone things or make broadcasts or do anything they want themselves. And it’s very simple to do.
INTERVIEWER: Now we have some materials on our website. What is, what’s a typical route for one to learn more about this solution?
KEN: Probably the best route is to contact your Singlewire salesperson. Or contact Singlewire sales in general. We can get you all the information, any documentation, including the product to try out. Most of the time people have questions about the specific paging system they have, but the way we’ve implemented it, it doesn’t matter to us what kind of system you have. We just add a very simple analog connection to it, so a lot of choices.
INTERVIEWER: Very good. Thank you, Ken, for your time.
KEN: Thank you.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 7:31 — 5.2MB)
