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SouthernLINC Wireless (News - Alert) has transitioned 9-1-1 wireless calls to the 95 Alabama public safety answering points (PSAPs) within its service area to the Alabama Next Generation Emergency Network (ANGEN), making it the first carrier in Alabama to do so.

Atlanta-based regional wireless carrier SouthernLINC Wireless has deployed highly survivable network coverage in the major metro and rural areas of Alabama, Georgia, southeast Mississippi and northwest Florida. SouthernLINC Wireless provides electric utilities with Push to Talk two-way radio (PTT), cellular service, wireless data, and text and picture messaging services.

According to officials, ANGEN is a multi-year, multiphase project that was initiated to deliver an all-IP network solution for 9-1-1 services.  In addition to improving the delivery of 9-1-1 services in Alabama, it will also prepare the PSAPs to make use of text, video, images and other data to respond to emergency calls. Call handling, for phone companies and PSAPs will be simplified by the ANGEN.

The ANGEN system provides dual-path access to the PSAP which is better than the single-path delivery system used in legacy systems. This built-in redundancy is expected to assist citizens in accessing help during crisis. This system is very useful during large-scale disasters, which generally affect a single-path 9-1-1 system adversely.

The phase 1 of the deployment process is under completion now and will soon allow all wireless 9-1-1 calls to flow through ANGEN for routing to the state’s 117 PSAPs. The Phase 2 work has also started in which 9-1-1 calls will be delivered using SIP for IP-enabled PSAPs. Here calls will be converted and delivered using CAMA technology for legacy PSAPs.

In 2013 SouthernLINC Wireless announced plans to roll out a 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE (News - Alert)) network to fulfil the growing data needs of its owner and largest customer, power/electric utility firm Southern Company.

Swedish telecoms vendor Ericsson will be providing the radio access network and evolved packet cores, while Cisco (News - Alert) will provide the multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) equipment. Deployment, planning and design for the network has started; and construction is expected to start in 2015.  SouthernLINC will continue to operate its iDEN network for both Southern Company affiliate customers and its regional customer base.