Mass Text Messaging EMS Personnel

[ds15]

Hello all -

I work with a group of volunteer EMS providers - generally about 50 individuals at any given time. We are exploring ways of notifying the entire department quickly and easily in case of a major incident. Currently we use a "phone tree" approach, which is not really ideal.

I'm looking at some of the web-based mass text messaging/SMS services. The services I looked at in general seem to be reasonably prices (around 5cents/message) and appear to be reputable and reliable.

I'm concerned because it seems like most of these services are geared towards "marketing" (aka "spamming") applications, which is definitely something I do not want our department to be associated with. I'd also be concerned that some members may automatically block messages coming from these services for this reason. I'm also unsure of the speed that each message will be delivered in - obviously, we'd usually like each member to be notified within several minutes of us sending the message.

So, I'm wondering if anyone has any experience using these types of services, and has any recommendations for which service to use, or any other advice or comments at all. Unfortunately, money is tight for us, so a more ideal solution using pagers is not possible at this time.

Again, thanks for any advice anyone can offer.

[Just Plain Ruff]

How many incidents do you have a month?

There are a couple of places on Google that I found.

What about a package deal with a paging service that would send mass pages.

[Timmy]

In Australia we use EAS paging, everyone who volunteers gets a pager. This pager has 3 folder:

Folder one – Is the Emergency folder were all the emergency calls come to, the pager tone is really loud.

Folder two - is the none emergency folder were the non emergency calls come to or further information after an emergency call has been sent.

Only the state communications and dispatch centre can send messages to these folders.

Folder three – is the administration folder were a anyone with access to the communications page on the members website. My service has around 40,000 EAS pagers and you can send a message to every paper at once.

Of course my volunteer service is government ran and we have 60,000 volunteers.

[celticcare]

Talk to your telecommunications provider, alot of private companies offer good paging deals and who knows, your comms room might just have the feature built into their system already, just sitting there unused

[itku2er]

Why not look into pagers that is what the squad I just joined has and they work great. Especially in the area I live in some places do not have cell service and a text message would not be practical for all the members.

[FireMedic65]

Pagers are probably you best bet. They are used a lot for dispatching. You can even get your own hardware to send out a page from you station. If you want to "text message" every ones cell phones, it would be rather difficult unless everyone was on the same provider, and still would be a pain. Unless someone puts all the numbers in their phone, types up a message and sends it to them.

[brentoli]

Every phone has an email you can send txt's to. Just set up an email distribution list.

[FireMedic65]

Every phone has an email you can send txt's to. Just set up an email distribution list.

What if people don't have text messaging?

[Kiwiology]

What if people don't have text messaging?

Then that phone you bought in about 1995 is probably very out of date

[brentoli]

What if people don't have text messaging?

I don't care. The OP asked for help with SMS services and said pagers were out of the question.