Your business may consider handling communication just through email and a cellular network, but there are many disadvantages to these approaches. Emails are sometimes ignored by their recipients and are sometimes caught by spam blockers. Even if the email isn't ignored, they might not be seen as fast when there is an emergency.

Cellular networks rely on an external system that occasionally fails, while your paging system is an internal system that you control. The paging system can be controlled by a phone that you simply pick up and use to broadcast throughout the building. However, for a paging system to be effective, the recipients must be able to hear the pager over ambient noise. 

Your Message Volume

The factor determining whether building occupants can hear the paging system is how loud it is. The loudness of the paging system is measured in decibels. When a sound is at 0 decibels, this is the minimum sound needed for someone to be able to hear the sound.

However, it may not necessarily be intelligible, especially depending on how loud the surrounding area is. You will want to avoid reaching 130 decibels because this is the point where the audio begins to feel painful. 

Normal conversation is about 60 decibels. However, that's not enough for everyone in a workplace to hear over a paging system. A sound level is reduced by 6 decibels each time the distance from the speaker doubles. Therefore, the further the speakers are away from the recipient of the message, the louder the decibel needs to be for the recipient to be able to hear it. 

The Use of Speakers

One way to make sure that there is adequate sound is to place speakers strategically throughout the building. Then, rather than raising the volume of an individual speaker, each speaker will provide coverage for the entire area without being too loud in some areas.

White Noise to Mask Other Sounds

One way to avoid creating too much noise in a space is to use sound masking. This is when white noise is added to the sound to help deaden the overall sound of the space. This can have the effect of lowering the overall volume of the area. The system listens to the noise in the general area and generates white noise to compensate. White noise is faint and sounds a bit like static, but is typically enjoyable to listen to.