IP Redefines Emergency Alerting
- By Simon Berman
- Apr 01, 2009
From an earthquake to a terrorist attack, getting the word out quickly to people in harm’s way is critical to protecting property and, more importantly, saving lives. Alerting methods have evolved over time, and the newest technology available in an emergency operator’s toolkit is network-centric emergency alerting.
The introduction of IP networking has resulted in a quantum leap in the evolution of emergency mass notification systems, turning network and end devices into a highly effective alarm system. The same way the Internet has revolutionized the delivery of personal and business communications, IP networks have dramatically improved the reach, speed and effectiveness of emergency mass notification.
The traditional model of an alerting system was a passive, one-way, closed communication system reaching devices such as sirens, speakers and strobe lights. While their use has been prevalent, these types of systems possess significant limitations, including little to no information content, no way to target groups by function, no personalization and no recipient feedback mechanism. The reach of such systems also is very dependent on physical location, requiring recipients to be close to the devices.
The emergence and advancement of telephony technology, such as mass dialers, improved alerting systems. Telephony’s geographic reach was far greater than that of sirens and PA systems and could include people at work, via mobile phone or at home. However, scalability and response time are dependent on line capacity, which often means it can take hours or even days to reach individuals if the target group is large.
Internet Synergies
The synergy of the Internet and mass notification opened up the potential of exploiting all the benefits of the Web and applying them to emergency alerting. In a few short years, network-centric emergency alerting has become one of the most effective approaches to achieving fast, scalable and reliable notification to organizations with large numbers of personnel distributed across many facilities.
By leveraging their existing IP networks and the open communication interfaces that promote integration and interoperability, organizations can now rapidly reach thousands of people simultaneously through a unified notification system. This system leverages the IP infrastructure as well as other existing alerting channels and triggers alerts to all devices, including computers, phones, PDAs, BlackBerry devices, sirens, public address systems, broadcast TV and radio channels. Such Web-based systems allow operators the flexibility of activating emergency alerts from any networked computer. significant advantages for organizations:
- Information can be personally tailored to individuals and their roles in an organization.
- Messages can be delivered to very large populations in seconds, regardless of location.
- Consistent alerts can be sent to a wide variety of communications devices from a single Web-based console, providing multichannel and redundant alerting.
One of the most valuable benefits of network-centric alerting systems is the ability to employ a feedback mechanism that allows emergency operators to receive confirmation from recipients that they have received the notification as well as information about their current status. This ability to provide near real-time information for personnel accountability is years beyond previous approaches that rendered such efforts futile.
In a few short years, emergency alerting has become much faster, more reliable and more scalable. It also has provided more capabilities and benefits thanks to the adoption of IP-based systems. After the introduction of the network as the primary conduit for alerting organizations to emergency situations, network-centric alerting systems continue to evolve to meet the ever-changing needs of large organizations.
This article originally appeared in the April 2009 issue of Network-Centric Security.
About the Author
Simon Berman (sberman@athoc.com) is vice president of product marketing for AtHoc Inc. of San Mateo, Calif.