Mid Georgia Ambulance Service is an internationally recognized EMS operation with 29 ambulances and over 140 dedicated EMS professionals, who respond to over 30,000 requests for service each year. They provide 911 emergency response coverage across a large portions of Georgia including Cook County and Chattahoochee County; approximately 40% of Bibb County, and supplemental 911 coverage in Muscogee County. In addition, Mid Georgia Ambulance Service provides hospital and private responses in Macon County and Muscogee County.



As Mid Georgia expanded its 911 response service in south central Georgia, they understood that their VHF radio system needed to be compatible with the Southern LINC iDEN communications system. The Southern LINC system is a primary communications platform for hospitals in their coverage area. They wanted to maintain a consolidated dispatch facility in Macon, where they had strong infrastructure and experienced staff, but this facility was nearly 130 miles away from their most outlying coverage areas. Their existing solution utilized leased lines, which were very expensive to maintain. They also wanted to have redundant, back-up dispatch capabilities in the event that something happened to their primary dispatch center. With all of these factors in mind, Mid Georgia Ambulance Company began to evaluate new radio dispatch solutions.

• Extend VHF system coverage to all locations within response area
  
  
• Link VHF radio system with iDEN based Southern LINC system
  
  
• Dispatch all response areas from a single consolidated dispatch center
  
  
• Reduce monthly leased line expenses
  
  
• Built-in redundancy and back up capabilities
  
  
• Allow for low cost system growth in the future

Line diagram of dispatch systemMid Georgia chose Telex's revolutionary IP-based dispatching solutions. The Telex equipment allowed them to replace their leased line with a low-cost DSL network connection, at a significant monthly savings. The IP-based infrastructure also facilitates radio network expansion as their response area continues to grow. Connecting additional towers and adding dispatch positions or radios are simple IP connections. The system linked Mid Georgia's VHF radios to the Southern LINC iDEN radios by connecting both to a C-6200, 18-line dispatch console. The C-6200 bridged all of the disparate systems onto the IP network; they were then accessible from all five of the primary dispatch positions, each running C-Soft dispatch console software. Now Mid-Georgia's dispatchers can place and receive calls on the iDEN system and on the VHF radios, as well as being able to crosspatch the two systems together, thus achieving interoperability between them. Mid Georgia utilized their existing network infrastructure for their new IP-based Dispatch system, so there was no additional investment in network development necessary. The new system also allows Mid Georgia to be able to create back-up dispatch locations anywhere along the network, by simply deploying another C-Soft console in the remote location of their choice. All that is required is access to the IP-network.



Mid Georgia not only successfully integrated their VHF system with the iDEN based Southern LINC system, they realized significant savings by eliminating their dedicated leased line. "This will be the way to communicate in the future," states Joe Robinson, Chief Operating Officer. Expressing great pleasure in not only the system performance, but also the service by the Telex representatives who installed it, Mid Georgia now plans to expand it to all of their operating sites statewide. With future expansion to other remote sites on the horizon, Mid Georgia is excited about the ability to simply plug into their existing network.