Posts Tagged ‘IP Paging’

Ouachita Baptist Alerts Students and Staff About an Emergency Situation Involving an Armed Robbery with InformaCast

Excerpt from the Ouachita Baptist Website

“The alert system operated effectively and we were able to clear the outside areas of campus very quickly.” – Dr. Keldon Henley, vice president for student services at Ouachita Baptist University

August 24, 2010

Ouachita Baptist University officials activated the university’s emergency notification system in response to a police search for a possible armed robbery suspect near campus.

An initial alert was issued at 10:29 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 24, with an all-clear message issued at 12:18 p.m.

The initial alert notified students, faculty and staff that “police are searching for a possible armed robbery suspect in the area behind OC Bailey and Anthony Halls” and instructed individuals to “go inside until further notice.” Follow-up alerts instructed recipients to “please go inside the nearest building until further notice.”

Following notification by Arkadelphia police that the suspect had been apprehended, university officials issued a message noting that “the emergency situation has now ended. You may continue normal activities.”

Ouachita’s extensive campus emergency notification system, launched in 2007, includes e-mail, text messages, outdoor loudspeakers, campus phone messages and computer pop-up alerts.

According to Ouachita President Rex Horne, “An emergency situation in Arkadelphia this morning resulted in our securing the campus and bringing all students and employees indoors.  A bank robbery was reported and Arkadelphia police advised us to issue an alert. We did so promptly.” He added that everyone on campus was safe and “taking every precaution” throughout the emergency alert.

Dr. Keldon Henley, vice president for student services, noted, “We were tremendously pleased by the response of our students and others on campus when the alert was announced. The alert system operated effectively and we were able to clear the outside areas of campus very quickly.”

Read More – Excerpt from the Ouachita Baptist Website

Appearing in the Colgate University Blog

Colgate has installed a new campus emergency public address system, which is part of the university’s comprehensive emergency notification plan. The new public address system is intended to provide timely warnings to the campus community in the event of a life-threatening emergency that requires immediate and widespread notification. It is important to note that it is highly unlikely the public address system will ever have to be used.

INFORMACAST is a component of the campus VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) telephone system installed in 2009. INFORMACAST allows prerecorded and live voice messages to be distributed to campus VOIP telephones, which include those in staff and faculty offices. While Colgate Alert is the primary tool for notifying the campus community in the event of a major emergency, INFORMACAST provides an additional layer of communication.

Read the full story on the Colgate University Blog at – http://blogs.colgate.edu/2010/08/colgate-installs-new-outdoor-e.html

Cisco says that applications from Singlewire Software now run on the ISR’s Application Extension Platform (AXP) services module. Singlewire’s InformaCast package simultaneously sends an audio stream or text message to multiple IP phones, IP speakers, desktop notification systems and overhead paging systems.

Cisco is extending its branch routers and LAN switches in an effort to improve the collaboration capabilities of enterprise customers and enhancing its Integrated Services Routers (ISR) and Catalyst 4500 and 6500 switches with new models, line cards and software to address mobility, sustainability and unified communications (UC) requirements.

Cisco is also now supporting High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) on the ISR’s 3G Wireless Wide Area Network module. HSPA boosts bandwidth and performance for the module in backup or disaster-recovery applications.

Read more about InformaCast and Cisco AXP

School districts deploy IP-based products that support everything from voice to texting and even social media.

Excerpt from Ed Tech Magazine E-Newsletter by Dan Tynan

There’s a security threat at an elementary school. A water main has broken, flooding the high school’s basement. A tornado is speeding toward the main administration building. A suspicious package just arrived in the mail room of a middle school. The police have cordoned off the vocational school’s neighborhood, and traffic is backed up for miles.

No matter what the emergency, you need to notify a lot of people in a hurry. How do you do it?

As the April 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech tragically proved, yesterday’s technologies — sirens, calling trees and the emergency broadcast network — are no longer sufficient.

That’s why school districts large and small are adopting IP-based systems that integrate a wide range of communications technologies, from voice to texting to Twitter.

When San Ramon Valley Unified School District (SRVUSD) began modernizing its facilities a few years ago, it cast aside its aging phone and retooled its public address system and its outdated Emergency Notification System (ENS) and tied nine of its 31 schools together with a single IP-based system.

Using Singlewire Software’s InformaCast, the Northern California district connected its loudspeakers, bells and ENS to an IP-based phone system from Cisco. The reason? More bang for the buck, says Jon Threshie, former director of technology for SRVUSD.

“We captured substantial construction cost savings by going with a single solution,” Threshie says. “By eliminating conduit and cable infrastructure, for the same money we could end up not only with a significantly superior telephone system for the school, but also a districtwide system as well.”

Because the public address speakers can be accessed individually, administrators can make specific announcements to, say, all first-grade classrooms or students on the playground, as well as issue campuswide alerts, by choosing from prefab templates.

Click to read full story

Cisco Case Study – Elon University uses mass notification and ip paging functionality of InformaCast as part of their campus security strategy.

Located in North Carolina, Elon University is a private university with 5400 students and 1150 faculty and staff. The university’s 100 buildings are situated on a beautiful and historic 575-acre campus, away from urban centers. “Students feel very safe here, and that’s part of the university’s appeal,” says Christopher Waters, the university’s assistant chief information officer and director of information systems. “At the parent orientation in 2008, one of the most popular question from parents was whether the campus had video surveillance.”

Elon’s campus security department can now view real-time and archived video surveillance footage on demand, thanks to the Cisco® Video Surveillance Operations Manager. The system operates over Elon University’s existing Cisco network, which is also used for Cisco Unified Communications; a Cisco digital signage solution; and for intercom, using Singlewire Informacast software and the built-in speakers of Cisco Unified IP Phones.

Click to read full case study featured on www.cisco.com – PDF

Cleveland County Public Schools adds AP instruction to another school without hiring a new teacher, with Unified Videoconferencing.

Formed when three school districts merged, North Carolina’s Cleveland County Public Schools has 29 elementary, junior, and high schools spread out over 40 miles. “Our biggest challenge is providing an excellent educational experience with limited budget and personnel,” says Rob McDaniel, network engineer for the district.

The district uses the built-in speakers of its Cisco Unified IP phones for intercom and bells, using InformaCast software from Singlewire, a Cisco partner. “Cisco Unified Communications cost approximately the same as a new PBX and intercom system,” says McDaniel. “The return on investment includes lower monthly recurring costs, the safety of having a phone in every classroom, and the ability to send text alerts to classroom phones in the event of weather-related or campus safety emergencies.”

Click to read full case study

Additional information on this solution – http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns151/networking_solutions_unified_communications_home.html