Jefferson County Schools

SouthernLINC Wireless improved communications for Jefferson County Schools in the following ways:

• Immediate communication: Cain and other administrators can contact just about anyone they need within seconds.
• Connectivity: Members of the Alabama Department of Education, several other county school districts, and the local police department also use SouthernLINC Wireless as a communications tool. "SouthernLINC Wireless has just given us tremendous capabilities that we have never had before," added Cain. "This kind of immediate communication makes the school environment safer for kids, and certainly makes our jobs easier."
• Reliability: The SouthernLINC Wireless network was built to meet the needs of Southern Company’s power companies, which require highly reliable communications during all kinds of weather.

The Full Story

Jefferson County Schools stay connected with more than 600 SouthernLINC Wireless phones. The Jefferson County Board of Education, located in Birmingham, Alabama, consists of 62 schools. After the close of the 1998-1999 school year, the school system's Department of Transportation yielded to the realization that their current means of communication was unreliable and inefficient. Using short range two-way radios, all messages were relayed through a radio tower with a repeating system. This proved to be an ineffective method of transporting information that needed to be changed immediately. In addition to the slow and unreliable system, only 60 Special Needs buses were equipped with these radios.

"With the old system, most of the bus drivers had no way of communicating with the schools or with each other," said Stephen Cain, Jefferson County Schools' Director of Transportation. "Oftentimes, if one of the buses was involved in an accident, the driver had to hope for the help of a passer-by in order to relay the information back to us, which meant that the children could be stranded for quite some time."

In June, 1999, the school system looked to SouthernLINC Wireless, the integrated wireless communications service from Southern Company, for a solution to their communications problems. Using iDEN technology from Motorola, SouthernLINC Wireless combines Push To Talk private two-way radio, phone service, text messaging and wireless data access in one hand-held device. The school system now uses more than 600 SouthernLINC Wireless phones. The department of transportation, bus drivers, road mechanics and maintenance crews, principals and other key administrators all rely on SouthernLINC Wireless to stay connected.

SouthernLINC Wireless provides us with the quick communication that is essential to smoothly running such a large operation. Should a bus break down on the road, the driver can immediately contact the Transportation Department and we can have another bus out to help them within a few minutes with the right people and the right tools on board. It gets rid of having to play 'catch-up' and saves us time, energy and fuel.

Stephen Cain
Jefferson County Schools' Director of Transportation

In recent history, a day of tornado warnings and inclement weather left most Jefferson County Schools without power or land-line phone service.

Cain and other administrators can contact just about anyone they need within seconds. Members of the Alabama Department of Education, several other county school districts, and the local police department also use SouthernLINC Wireless as a communications tool. "SouthernLINC Wireless has just given us tremendous capabilities that we have never had before," added Cain. "This kind of instant communication makes the school environment safer for kids, and certainly makes our jobs easier." In one expression of confidence, Jefferson County school buses will soon have bumper stickers that state "Wireless Communications provided by SouthernLINC Wireless."