Kenwood NEXEDGE® the power behind the Nextalk PAMR Network in Cape Town

With a population of 3.75 million and a total area of some 2844 km2, Cape Town is the capital of the Western Cape province and home to the Nextalk Public Access Mobile Radio (PAMR) network.

The company behind the Nextalk network is RFG Communication, whose Managing Director, Wayne Martin joined the company in 1992 as Workshop Manager and went on to buy the company in 1995.

It is the most advanced radio network currently operating in the Western Cape, providing coverage from Cape Town to as far as Vredenberg, Robertson and Caledon; and one of the few networks able to serve Sea Point, Camps Bay and Hout Bay.

Since then the business has grown and broadened its customer base from serving the farming community to include a wider service industry profile from its state of the art facility in the Gants industrial area in Strand, Western Cape.

RFG Communication is the majority shareholder in Nextalk, a wide area, trunked digital radio network offering seamless roaming of connected equipment between its strategically located repeater sites.

The building of the network started in 2009 to meet demand from customers wanting wider coverage along with the features and flexibility of digital technology without having to apply for new licenses or invest in their own infrastructure. At the time, it was a forerunner in harnessing digital radio communication in South Africa and the first system in the southern hemisphere to employ Kenwood Nexedge multisite equipment and infrastructure.

Today, Nextalk is a 12-site PAMR network with a licensed 8GHZ IP backbone and redundancy built into both the network infrastructure and its IP backbone to assure 99% system availability.

Kenwood NEXEDGE with its 6.25kHz FDMA narrowband protocol was chosen as the basis for the Nextalk system for a number of reasons, as Wayne Martin recalls: “Building a new, wide area digital PAMR system from scratch requires investment and taking a long-term commercial view, so we reviewed our options carefully before deciding on Nexedge on the basis of its reputation, performance, infrastructure cost, flexibility, features, ease of implementation and the excellent technical support from both Global Communications and the team at JVCKENWOOD in the UK”.

The Nextalk network has over 600 subscribers who use its Voice, GPS tracking and Status Message capabilities. The inherent security offered by the NXDN air access method is also important to a number of subscribers, particularly those involved in providing private security services. The other distinctive features of Nextalk appreciated by its subscribers include:

− fixed monthly airtime fee
− unlimited talk time
− seamless roaming between coverage areas
− automatic subscriber validation
− individual and group calls
− text messaging
− choice to rent or purchase equipment
− call queuing and automatic connection
− late entry joining to a group or individual call
− remote stun/kill/revive a radio that is lost or stolen
− PTT ID on calls
− AVL (Automatic vehicle location) option
− calls to landlines or cellular phones option
− emergency calls option