Irish system integrator Sigma Wireless was at the World Congress to launch its first TETRA product – the Comalerter, a two-way pocket messenger device. “The term pager is not right, it’s so much more than a pager”, emphasizes managing director Tony Boyle. “From a paging perspective, it’s full two-way: it’s alphanumeric, mostly, out to the device, it is pre-canned messages for return.” The user, he explains, can select from up to 100 predefined messages stored in the device, and they can be freely changed over the air as well.

Mark Hanley, of the Irish developer Isle Systems, Sigma’s partner in the project, adds that the Comalerter has an integrated GPS receiver and also a big red SOS button for emergencies. “There’s also man-down detection, and it has a touchscreen interface to access all of your inbox and outbox and all of the features within the device”, he says. “So it’s intuitive to understand. Phones are touchscreen now, so people understand the icon layout.”

In production

Mr Boyle adds that he is receiving wide interest in the pager from TETRA operators seeking to develop their customer base beyond the traditional blue-light agencies. “If you take a highway worker or perhaps a midwife or a probation officer, these are a new type of customer that they can access who don’t necessarily want to carry a full radio”, he says. “They just want it for messaging purposes, so that’s certainly of interest. We’ve found a lot of interest for on-site systems as well.

“The other thing we’ve found very encouraging is talking to the terminal manufacturers. The feedback is very positive and I think they see that perhaps the time is now right for this type device. It changes the paradigm, really: it’s not just paging for firemen, it’s a much broader application.”

At the heart of the unit is Motorola’s TOM100 TETRA radio module, but Sigma Wireless has added to this an efficient internal antenna. “We’ve managed to achieve virtually the same coverage as a handportable”, Mr Boyle says. “If you’ve built your network for good handportable in building coverage, then this will work.”

Software support

Backing the Comalerter is a suite of fully automated back-office messaging and alerting products from Isle Systems, interconnecting with GSM mobile phones, PCs, email, and providing a full record of everything that happens. “So if somebody sets off a panic alert there is an audit trail – when it started, who received it, what time did they respond at, and all the information that happened during it”, Mark Hanley says.