Mass Notification Systems Solutions in Government and Public Sector

Airbus DS Communications has an extensive mass notification solutions portfolio, with superior alert and emergency communication capabilities. The company provides these solutions as the part of its VESTA portfolio which serves hundreds of public and private sector organizations around the world. The VESTA Communicator provides organizations of every size the speed, intelligence, and reliability needed to notify and mobilize critical resources at a moment’s notice. The key benefits of this solution include intelligent mobilization of personnel, improved accountability of critical resources, and greater situational awareness through exponentially improved and widespread communication.

BlackBerry AtHoc has a strong portfolio of mass notification offerings, and the company is focused on consistently enhancing them through frequent upgrades and new product launches. It offers its mass notification solutions through Networked Crisis Communication Suite which consists of Alert, Collect, Account, and Connect applications running on its secure cloud platform which connects users, organizations and devices globally, addressing the growing needs of crisis communications. The Alert application is a unified EMN tool which notifies the organization or target select groups of people along with the ability to receive their responses. It easily integrates with IP or non-IP based technologies that include desktops, IP phones, social networks, fire panels, Public Address (PA) systems, sirens, digital display boards, and two way radios.

Traditionally, Blackboard has been strong in providing enterprise technology and solutions for the education industry. However, in the past few years it has diversified its business portfolio to venture into other industries as well. Its foray into the mass notification and emergency management began in 2008 with the launch of Blackboard Connect service for use by school districts and higher education institutions to send out mass phone, text, and email notifications in the case of natural disasters and campus emergencies. The major features of Blackboard Connect include instant notifications, two-way messaging, automated emergency calls and messaging, community engagement, any device access, reporting, dashboards, mobile apps, language translation, social media integration, and geo mapping.

With the acquisition of Cooper Industries in 2015, Eaton Corporation has diversified its portfolio of emergency and mass notification offerings. The breadth of offerings of Eaton is quite comprehensive in terms of both hardware and software, and consists of ALERiTY One Button MNS, supervised bi-directional loudspeakers, Wheelock Exceder LED MNS Speaker Strobes, Wheelock Series RSS Colored Lens Strobes, Campus Alerting System, First Responder Interoperable Communications, High Power Speaker Array 8100- R Series - IP Network, Net-centric Alerting System, RSAN Emergency Voice Messaging, Roam Secure Information Exchange (RSIX), SAFEPATH MNS, and WAVES MNS. ALERiTY is the major mass notification offering of Eaton, which provides real-time information to people in a building, outdoor area, or specific geographic location, communicating what to do in response to threats.

Everbridge is a leader in the MNS market. It offers its mass notification solutions as the part of Critical Event Management (CEM) suite which enables organizations to assess threats, locate impacted people and assets, and manage and respond to critical events, all on a single platform. The SaaS-based critical communications engine of the company delivers multi-tenant capability and the speed, scale and resilience necessary to communicate globally when a serious event occurs. Mass notification application of Everbridge enables enterprises and government entities to send contextually aware notifications to individuals or groups to keep them informed before, during, and after natural or man-made disasters and other emergencies. This application supports a plethora of features and functionalities such as robust analytics, map-based targeting, flexible group management, distributed contact data, language localization, multiple options for contact data management and a globally-optimized approach to voice and SMS routing. Everbridge also supports community engagement functionality, which provides a direct link between residents and emergency management departments with the goal of fostering public safety.

Honeywell provides a full range of emergency communications solutions including software and hardware. The Honeywell mass notification portfolio includes all the three categories of solutions: in-building, wide area, and distributed recipient solutions. Honeywell Instant Alert and Instant Alert Plus are customizable, cloud-based emergency, and MNS with features such as mass alerts via multiple devices, including phone, email and text; and text-to-speech voice. Silent Knight is a hardware product which has the integrated fire alarm and emergency communication system to provide life safety communication to facility residents. Notifier MNS broadcasts live, up-to-the minute emergency information to everyone in a building, campus, or multiple facilities across the globe. E-3 Series expandable emergency evacuation system provides a robust MNS with products, such as an Local Operating Console (LOC), back-lit signage, high-threat switches, amber strobes, specialized speakers, and giant voice equipment. Fire-Lite Emergency Command Center (ECC) application is designed for i-Pad apps. It is a training tool to educate anyone who needs to use the Fire-Lite Alarms Emergency Command Center to communicate instructions to building occupants during a fire, weather, security or any other type of emergency situations.

Omnilert has marked its presence in the MNS market with its unique notification and communication system. The company’s mass notification solution caters to various industry verticals such as corporate enterprises, educational institutes, healthcare, manufacturing, and government organizations. It provides omnimodel notification solutions in which a single message can be sent to differnet people in different formats such as text messages, emails, voice calls, mobile apps, Twitter posts, Facebook posts, widgets, desktop alerts, and RSS feeds. The solution helps deliver notification on any device in real time. Omnilert scenarios allows users to plan and prepare responses in case of critical situations. It helps in planning the steps and also initiating the actions to be taken in critical situations.

OnSolve has a robust portfolio of SaaS critical communication offerings. The strategic acquisitions of leading vendors such as MIR3 and Send Word Now have helped it to diversify its product portfolio and positioned it as the strongest player in the MNS market in the current scenario. Its portfolio of offerings is excellent, though it does not provide any hardware products for this market. The OnSolve mass notification portfolio of offerings includes all the three categories of solutions: in-building, wide area, and distributed recipient solutions. The company’s CodeRED solution provides high-speed notification services capable of reaching millions of people in minutes, and has applied its mission critical capabilities to government agencies responsible for the safety and security of citizens. The MIR3 is a complete solution for large enterprises and federal agencies seeking to manage critical events or natural disasters effectively through the transmission of critical information.

Siemens is a provider of technical infrastructure solutions related to mass notification such as electronic security, fire safety, and energy efficiency in buildings and public places. Recently, it has also started offering software solutions as part of its Desigo Mass Notification Suite. The company provides offerings in all the 3 broad categories of mass notification solutions: in-building, wide area, and distributed recipient. Siemens has designed Sygnal MNS to help communicate critical information in form of messages to the people anywhere, anytime. It is a highly adaptable system that can utilize existing infrastructures such as voice systems, LED signage, and LAN networks. The Sygnal system starts with the premises-based server which gives access to messaging protocols through networked computers, phones and wireless devices, along with communications from remote locations and covers the Sygnal software for connecting to network in various ways. Desigo Mass Notification specializes in connecting people efficiently and accurately through various mediums such as telephones, email, alert messages, and social media alerts.

Singlewire Software has a wide range of offerings in the MNS market. It develops and supports IP-based voice applications for emergency communication with mass notification capabilities. Singlewire’s offering is branded InformaCast, a solution that transforms Cisco phones, overhead speakers, cell phones, and other devices into an IP paging and emergency notification system, which enables users to send text and live, adhoc, pre-recorded, and text-to-speech audio notifications to various endpoints. It also offers InformaCast Mobile, a cloud-based service that allows users to send images, text, and pre-recorded audio notifications to mobile devices. InformaCast Fusion combines the capabilities of Advanced and Mobile into one system to reach on-premises and mobile devices through a single interface. InformaCast Fusion and InformaCast Mobile are cloud-based services.

xMatters is a leading provider of business continuity management, intelligent communications, proactive communications, and connected devices. The company offers solutions which can be employed and managed as part of the IT infrastructure of enterprises and can be integrated with other corporate subsystems. Moreover, the company aims to serve more than 1,000 leading global firms to ensure that their business operations are running smoothly and effectively during critical incidents, such as IT failures, product recalls, natural disasters, dynamic staffing, service outages, medical emergencies, and supplychain disruption. The company also focuses on a select technology vision of business communications and continuity management which can address both business as well as employee needs. xMatters offers technologies that focus on enhancing, automating, and speeding up communication processes for organizations. xMatters IT Service Management is an automated, intuitive, and flexible communication platform which gives the control to enterprises to resolve incidents fast. It helps in communicating across enterprises to targeted individuals and groups through any channel from text to email to in-app, always on the preferred device.