Does the text-paging system require any additional effort by Communications Center personnel?
No. The entire text-paging process is “transparent” to the dispatcher. As soon as the dispatcher issues the CAD command to dispatch the incident, CAD automatically sends the message to the text-paging system for distribution to the organizations assigned to respond. The dispatcher, however, does have the ability to send a unique text-page to a user or group. The Center, however, will need to develop a policy with respect to such pages (i.e.: when this capability should be used, who can request or authorize a page, etc.). Development of this system is intended to supplement the emergency dispatch process, and not to make the Center a paging “common carrier.
