What Does Genesis Do?

by Phil Burks - President, The Genesis Group

I can't tell you how many times people ask me that! Bankers seem to glaze over when I get technical, so while this may not be brief, I'll try to make it simple. I have provided links to help on terms that you may have never heard—that way you can take the fast answers or the more in-depth ones.

Here's the actual, technical short answer: Genesis provides software tools for two-way radio network operators, so they will know and understand the performance of their radio networks:

Who is doing what
Bill for usage
Help network operators plan for the future

Let's pull that apart a little bit...

What is two-way radio?

Policemen carry them on TV shows and on the street; all ambulance EMT workers carry them. You may not have noticed that many other people also carry and use two-way radios, such as security workers, personnel in manufacturing, chemical plants, college campuses, resorts, casinos, airline maintenance and baggage, courier services, warehouses, shipping docks, FBI, Secret Service, prisons, military, cruise ships, sports stadiums, and the list goes on. Some people call these radios walkie-talkies. However, sometimes the radios look different—they may be mounted in vehicles with all sorts of extra equipment connected to them, such as laptops, scanners, etc. Most radios run on systems which utilize the tall red and white towers commonly seen; they allow small radios to 'relay' or 'repeat' through these towers to talk a very long distance.

What do people do with two-way radio?

Two-way radio's greatest feature allows a user to press one button and instantly talk to many people. Usually the people talking on a radio system can be divided into industry segments. For example, a city may own a two-way radio system, but several entities share that one system—police, fire, water, sewer, traffic, inspection, social services, maintenance, animal ordinance, enforcement, etc. Typically, the people from each entity comprise a Talk Group so that when the dispatcher for the water department, for instance, tells her workers that they will shortly open a water main, she doesn't have to involve all the other departments—unless she wants to (the two-way radio systems CAN allow her to do that also). Therefore, the radios help coordinate people and machines, and they save time, money, and even lives.

What does one of these two-way radio systems cost?

A system's cost really depends upon its size and complexity. Some very small, simple systems can cost about $10,000. On the other hand, a state-wide, complex system may cost as much as $250,000,000. Before you faint, think about the fact that if a major disaster happened in your town, you would want your city to be totally prepared to coordinate all of the emergency services responding to that disaster, and you would want a 99.999% guarantee that it will work! The actual radios people carry can range from $300 to $6,000. The most expensive are extremely rugged, waterproof, secure, etc.

Are there a lot of two-way systems out there?

Yes. In general, every city with population over 1000, every county, every state, and some entire countries have two-way radio systems. No one knows the exact number, but the USA and Canada alone have about 2000 systems for public safety. As of 2010, Genesis has about 25% market penetration of the licensed trunking systems in North America. Considering the rest of the world as well as other industries using two-way radio, a large potential market still awaits.

What are two-way network operators?

The new word here is 'network'. In the old days, all users of two-way were limited to the range of a single radio tower—generally about a 30-mile radius, and the radios were all in cars and trucks. Now, most are hand held 'walkie-talkie' style radios which put out far less power and thus have much shorter range. There's no hard-and-fast rule, but in a metropolitan area with hand-held radios, a user may only get a 5-10 mile range from a tower, and even that coverage area would include many gaps. Technology in the '90s came along which allowed towers to connect to each other—a smart brain permitted conversations to use multiple towers. This happened long before cellular phones, but it uses a similar concept. When a brain empowers radios automatically to use many towers, it becomes a 'network'. So a two-way network operator (whether one person or a group of people) oversees the network to make sure all of the towers, brains, circuits, etc., continually function.

What do you mean by performance?

My favorite analogy about our performance measurement is the dashboard. Could you drive a car without a dashboard? Sure. It might be challenging, but you could drive it. Most two-way radio networks have no "dashboard" to give them information. For the small systems, this isn't a big deal. For larger networks, however, it compares more with attempting to fly a 747 without a control panel! Both the 747 and a car have many computer-assisted instruments to tell if the vehicle performs correctly. They can even instruct the driver in advance to 'Check Engine' before something really goes wrong. A car can drive with a low tire or missing a headlight; it can even function for a short time with low oil or gas levels, but it operates much better when those problems are recognized and corrected early. In our world, the issues we see on two-way radio networks range from small nuisances that cause busy signals or short drops in conversations all the way to catastrophic problems that eradicate radio coverage to entire towns. Our software provides a vitally important "dashboard" for radio network operators to detect these performance issues in advance or immediately when they happen.

Who's Doing What

Anyone responsible for the total bottom line at a business would want regular information verifying the health of the business. If the manager noticed a trend in sales dropping, he would want to 'dive deeper' into the numbers to find its cause. This may show something such as a particular salesman's performance plummeting, which would lead to further investigation and possible action. The same goes in two-way radio. Genesis gathers enough information to tell where radios have been, how much they have been used (or NOT used), and we roll all of that up into the 'big picture'. Then, if the manager of a two-way network began to see a trend, he would have ALL of the detail necessary to dive deep and find out the cause of the issue.

Bill for Usage

Many two-way radio networks are put together like office buildings. Someone owns the hardware & towers, pays to maintain it, and then pays to enlarge or enhance the system, just as the owner of an office building would do for his property. Then the radio network owner allows various cities, counties, or businesses to use his network for a fee. To keep track of how much to bill, software really comes in handy. Genesis has that software.

Help Network Operators Plan for the Future

Going back to the building analogy—it would be horrible if the owner one day suddenly realized that he had no more parking spaces or floor space available to rent. The smart thing would have been to monitor this and plan expansion for future needs. We help two-way network operators do this. For example, we can help them see which tower sites have the most radio traffic or how often sites operate at maximum capacity, and then we give them the information to plan intelligently and efficiently for their future. This allows them to spend their money wisely on advantageous system enhancements as well as avoiding unnecessary expansion costs.

Our Mission

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