TMCnet News
SquareLoop Continues Testing of its Emergency Messaging System for CellularAssociate Editor Virginia based SquareLoop recently made news here at TMCnet when it announced that it was testing a location-based cellular messaging system which can deliver emergency messages to users’ cell phones in the event of a disaster requiring evacuation.
The company claims that with its new technology, municipalities can deliver critical - perhaps even life-saving - messages to citizens in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist attack. The messages, which can be differentiated based on geographic location, can tell people where to go and what to do while they are in the process of evacuating an area. Testing of the software began last month in the city of Manassas, Va. - with the blessing of Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner. The testing, which will run through March, consists of delivering test LBS alerts to volunteer emergency responders from the City of Manassas. The system will be used to deliver AMBER alerts, evacuation messages and traffic congestion information to emergency responders’ standard wireless phones (which, in this case, consist of Motorola and RIM Blackberry phones on the Sprint iDEN network). The messages will be beamed to specific geographic locations within Manassas city limits. One of the technology’s biggest advantages is its ability to target messages to specific areas or regions. For example, officials could use the technology to target messages only to those people who were in the vicinity of a biological agent release, even days after the agent was released. Or it could send information about a traffic accident only to those most likely impacted by the resulting traffic delays. Such alerts can be sent via a web-based interface or via existing emergency management systems. TMCnet recently forwarded a few questions about the new service to Joe Walsh, SquareLoop’s vice president of operations. What follows are the questions and his responses: Q: How is the test in Manassas going so far? Is the system working OK? A: Everything in Manassas is working well. The first messages sent have been successful. Q: Across which carriers, and which phones, can the service be delivered? Can messages be displayed on most cell phone models? A: The City of Manassas uses Sprint iDEN phones, specifically the Motorola i560 and i730 as well as the RIM BlackBerry 7520. We work on any phone that runs J2ME v 2.0 and MIDP 2.0 or later. On the Nextel network, this accounts for most of the models they currently sell. Q: Can a user still get an emergency message if he or she is on the phone? Are messages text only or can they also be audio signals? A: Messages also arrive with a special audible tone. In fact, we can deliver different audible tones for different types of messages. This is all rising above what we call the “Human SPAM filter” to get people to pay attention to critical messages. Currently the iDEN phones do not support receiving messages while on the phone. Q: Is the service mainly intended for delivery of messages during evacuations or are there other instances when it might be useful? A: There are a lot of instances where this is useful and one of the biggest is to alert people when NOT to evacuate. Beyond life threatening events, the system can be used to alert about severe weather alerts or other driving hazards such as road closures. First responders can also use it to distribute information on a day-to-day basis to units who are near an incident. Beyond public safety, we envision that this can be used for location-based content and mobile marketing. For example, a traffic service that tells you when you are near an accident rather than forcing you to listen to traffic reports for an entire region on the radio. Q: Does the software work with existing systems? Is there a need to purchase an additional server or any other hardware to make it work? Or does the software do it all? A: There is no need for the locality to purchase any additional hardware. The interface can be through a web portal run by SquareLoop or through an interface into existing systems. The interfaces are XML based on standards such as the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) that are currently being built into many systems already being deployed by emergency operation centers. Q: Is it mostly municipalities which will be interested in this software? A: For the public safety applications, yes, we believe that the localities are the ones who will be most interested in this type of system. Beyond public safety, however, we believe that corporations can use this as a communications vehicle for their employees. The largest markets, however, will be for mobile content and marketing. Q: Can we look forward to a national messaging system like this one in the future? How well positioned is SquareLoop to market and deliver the system on a nationwide basis? Is that its goal? Are there many competitors? A: We believe that this system is perfectly suited for a national alerting system because it provides a national infrastructure (one system) that can be locally controlled. (Localities are given the ability to send messages only within their geopolitical boundaries). We also have a number of other features that make this a great national emergency system including the ability to deliver messages based on where people are, or have been (useful for biological events that may not be apparent for several hours or days) and the ability to play special alert tones to differentiate messages from normal text messages. There are several competitors in the blast SMS field. ------- SquareLoop claims its technology protects privacy by using the intelligence of the wireless receiver to filter messages. This enables the delivery of messages on a geographic basis without the need for “continuous tracking” of wireless subscribers. SquareLoop claims it is the first location-based services system to accomplish this. The technology can also be used to filter messages based on factors such as velocity, direction of travel, or time of day. For more information about SquareLoop visit www.squareloop.com. Patrick Barnard is Associate Editor for TMCnet and a columnist covering the telecom industry. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page. |