Last September, wireless operators had to notify the FCC about whether they intended to participate in the Commercial Mobile Alert System program, which would allow the president, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Weather Service and myriad local emergency agencies to blast text alerts across their networks in times of emergency. Congress created the program through the WARN Act in 2006 as another step in upgrading public safety and security infrastructure and bridging national and local emergency agencies. Participation in the program, however, is entirely optional, and most carriers opted out.
While that may seem to signal that carriers don't support the government's emergency warning initiatives, Eric Peterson, executive director of the Rural Cellular Association, said that's hardly the case. The problem is that government delays have pushed back the launch of the system until 2010, and FEMA, the agency in charge of implementing the government's part of the infrastructure, hasn't yet developed its message aggregator, nor has it released the technical specifications necessary to interface with it. Operators, Peterson said, simply had no idea what they'd be committing to. “The notion that so many of them opted out has to do with not knowing what basic requirements they'd have to meet,&8221; Peterson said. “It has nothing to do with any lack of commitment to public safety.” Just because they opt out now, doesn't mean those same operators can't opt in later. In fact, they have plenty of incentive to do so. When the service finally does launch, operators that do not participate are obligated to make it very clear to their customers - in their mailed bills, online and in their stores - that they won't be receiving alerts from the president or the local sheriff's department. Regardless of the public relations incentive, Peterson said that most of the RCA's membership would like to participate in the program and not just for the public service benefits. Carriers will be able to use the platforms they put in place for other commercial applications as well, which should help them recoup their investments.
Implementing CMAS isn't as simple as routing government short message service (SMS) dispatches. SMS was designed as a peer-to-peer service, and while carrier SMS centers do handle one-to-many services such as text news alerts, they aren't designed to handle millions of simultaneous alerts. Peer-to-peer SMS also is a grossly inefficient way to handle such traffic, resulting in high operational costs and network congestion. But the biggest problem with current systems is that they track users by phone number, not location. A user whose cell number is registered in California may not need to receive forest fire alerts if he's traveling in Kansas. But he probably needs to get the tornado warning alert for the town he's staying in.
The most effective technology for dealing with these scenarios is cell broadcast, which can be implemented in different forms on both CDMA and GSM networks, said Joe Cobbs, vice president of business development for Velleros, a vendor that builds message alert gateways, including CMAS gateways. Cell broadcast essentially bypasses the home location register and other subscriber databases and transmits to all mobile users in a particular cell, regardless of their identity or roaming status. The technology would allow emergency agencies to target alerts on a cell-by-cell basis, so, for instance, an emergency alert for one county would only be sent to subscribers physically in that county. Cell broadcast isn't exactly a cheap technology to implement, though. It requires upgrades to the mobile switching center and the base station controller, as well as to the base stations themselves. A firmware upgrade for the handset also is required. Some operators may choose to do without cell broadcast, which would allow them to send national alerts but not to target specific local emergency alerts.
While cell broadcast would be the most expensive upgrade, there are several other costs to consider. Carriers will have to interface with the FEMA gateway when it is finally launched, buying their own CMAS gateways to aggregate incoming traffic, Cobbs said. While it makes sense for operators to opt out now until they are aware of the full cost of participating in CMAS, Cobbs believes they will eventually opt in, especially when they have a clearer picture of how they can use the capital investment for their own commercial services. Carriers, for instance, could sell alert services to municipalities looking to broadcast citywide messages to employees. In the wake of the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech, universities also might have a strong interest in alert systems, which university officials could use to instantly communicate with all students and staff.
“Operators don't want to view CMAS as just a cost,” Cobbs said. “They want to view it as a platform for delivering other services and enhanced revenue.”
http://telephonyonline.com/independent/news/navigating_cmas_090201As Hurricane Gustav was wearing down on the Gulf coast, Callis Communications provided real-time mass notification service for the students, faculty, parents, and other interested parties at the University of Mobile. The critical alerting system allowed school officials to keep constituents informed with the latest storm information as well as the impact to campus services during the important period. Partnering with Velleros, Inc., an emerging supplier of high capacity network-aware content notification solutions, Callis Communications is able to provide this emergency alerting to educational institutions, government entities, and key enterprise customers across the nation. University of Mobile President Mark Foley commented, “During this dire emergency, it was essential that our officials be able to send real-time direction and information to the impacted parties. Working with Callis and Velleros has provided this all-important capability to the University to help us protect our community.”
“We are pleased to be providing this vital service for all of our clients,” added Dean Parker, CEO of Callis Communications. “The partnership with Velleros enables us to better serve our community for years to come.”
The Velleros solution allows carriers to offer hosted mass notification services to their customers. The Velleros Aggregation and Syndication Technology (VASTtm) platform provides a push-notification engine for administrators to create alerts for targeted constituents including educational institutions, government entities, and emergency responders. This capability includes instant dial-out conferencing and IVR polling for time sensitive situations to ensure the community remains responsive when emergencies occur.
Founded in Mobile AL in 1999 as Allpage, Callis Communications is a leading facilities-based Competitive Local Exchange Carrier providing hosted, fully-managed IP telephony services to small and medium-sized businesses and organizations on the Gulf Coast. Callis’ solutions include hosted PBX, local and long distance phone service, data backup, server collocation, domain, email, and website hosting, and outsourced IT management.
Based in Morrisville NC, Velleros enables carriers to derive incremental revenue streams through new 2.0 web-based content and services combined with highly effective contextual advertising. The Velleros VAST platform distributes aggregated content to any network connected device per user preference, providing a more personalized infotainment experience. VAST applications include CMAS Ready Community Notification, Personalized Content Manager and Mobile Marketing and Advertising. www.Velleros.com
By Evan Koblentz
WirelessWeek - June 19, 2008
It's not just Tier-1 giants who can fulfill the recent FCC requirement for a national wireless emergency alert system, startups like Velleros and Movius Interactive said.
The small companies are both planning new products catering to second- and third-tier telecommunications providers, which in turn sell to campuses and enterprises.
Joe Cobbs, co-founder and VP of business development at Morrisville, N.C.-based Velleros, said the original plan for his company was to provide weather alerts by voice messages, text messages and email. "There was a market out there for carriers to be in the mass notification space that they weren't aware of," he explained.
The springtime decision from the FCC's Commercial Mobile Service Alert Advisory Committee validated the market, so Velleros' technology is being upgraded for compliance, Cobbs said.
Service providers could also sell the same technology for use as local and niche content portals, Cobbs said. That could start in 2009 and the product would evolve into a content management system, he said.
Meanwhile, Velleros this week announced Movius as its first reseller. Movius' focus is nationwide so Velleros is looking for regional partners as well.
"They approached us late last year. It aligned with us strategically, it was a very complimentary technology. It's tightly combined all these elements of marketing, community and entertainment," Movius's Earl Philmon, director of product line management said in Duluth, Georgia. Movius is working on technical challenges such as scalability and user interfaces. Its first products based on Velleros' technology will debut early next year, Philmon said. Prices will start at about $100,000 for basic applications.
17th June, 2008
Movius Interactive Corporation Announces Rapid Alert Application
New Mobile Application Enables Carriers to Deliver Timely Alerts and Notifications
JOHNS CREEK, GA - June 17, 2008 - Movius Interactive Corporation (Movius), a global leader in messaging, collaboration and mobile media solutions, today announced Rapid Alert, a new messaging application that enables carriers to quickly deliver important alerts and personal notification content to subscribers.. Developed in partnership with Velleros, an emerging provider of high-capacity, network-aware content-notification systems, Rapid Alert enables carriers to deliver mass notifications of information such as news, sports, community events and alerts like Amber and severe weather to customers based on user-defined delivery options including short message service (SMS), synthesized voice and email.
"We find the introduction of this service very timely as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced that it will soon mandate a commercial mobile alert system (CMAS) for all mobile services providers," said Oscar Rodriguez, CEO at Movius. "With the Movius Rapid Alert application, carriers can easily offer this alert and notification service to subscribers, which will enable them to quickly deliver desired content and severe and catastrophic event information that can help protect property and lives."
Traditional alert notification solutions used by municipalities today are limited in that they do not offer comprehensive delivery options that focus on consumer's growing reliance on mobile phones. Instead they rely on call-tree systems that can be difficult to manage and take valuable time to deliver messages and track results; email distribution solutions that cannot reach impacted residents if they are not online; and voice mail distributions that only reach users that have been included in the system. Movius Rapid Alert offers a full range of delivery options and the versatility to prioritize the notification method.
U.S. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, in The Commercial Mobile Alert System, First Report and Order, PS Docket No. 07-287 stated: "With the American public increasingly relying on wireless communications in everyday life, it is essential that we support and advance new ways to share critical, time-sensitive information with them in times of crisis. The ability to deliver accurate and timely warnings and alerts through cell phones and other mobile services is an important next step in our efforts to help ensure that the American public has the information they need to take action to protect themselves and their families prior to, and during, disasters and other emergencies."
Movius Rapid Alert is a carrier grade solution that delivers the performance and reliability carriers require. Rapid Alert delivers alerts and notifications over standard open protocols for mass notification. This approach enables carriers to provide personalized content and life-protecting automatic alerts to a user-defined distribution list for rapid communication of time sensitive information and warnings. The system can support National Weather Service and Pacific Tsunami Warning feeds for voice and text based notifications for tornadoes, tsunamis, hurricanes and Amber alerts.
For municipal environments, the Rapid Alert application also supports community notification, which allows educational institutions to push alerts and provides response and feedback mechanisms. State and local governments can leverage this application for real-time communication and response mobilization. Rapid Alert also offers a call-attempt notification service that can trigger a real-time automatic notification to friends and relatives when a user attempts to call 911.
Movius will be demonstrating Rapid Alert along with other messaging, collaboration and interactive mobile media solutions in booth SL4116 at NXTcomm08, June 16-19, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Based in Morrisville, N.C., Velleros, Inc. was founded with the vision of being the first mover company to deliver new revenue-generating web-enabled content and services to the network connected consumer mass market. These services promote our customers, the telecommunications carriers, to the forefront of the impending paradigm called Voice 2.0, where voice and the web converge. The Velleros AlertSlinger platform enables carrier customers to deliver feature-rich services and content such as the All-Hazards Gateway, Campus Alerting (CAMLOCTM), State/Local Government Notification (STALOTM), Call Attempt Notifier (N-911TM), Content Aggregation Suite (V-CASTM), and TelePop™. For more information about Velleros, please visit http://www.velleros.com/
Movius Interactive Corporation gives people the power to enrich their lives through viable innovations that transform the way they interact with information, media and each other. Formally under the name IP Unity Glenayre, Movius is a recognized leader in messaging, collaboration and mobile media solutions for service providers worldwide.
21st April, 2008
New Orleans LA, April 22, 2008 - Velleros today announced that it is presenting its high-capacity, network-aware content notification solutions at the MetaSwitch Forum in New Orleans LA. The event runs from April 22 to 24, and draws representatives from service providers, large enterprises, and government agencies that want information about switching technology and applications innovation.
The presentation of emergency alerting applications is being led by Velleros' Dave LeClaire, vice president of sales. "Velleros participates in these events to promote the content notification as a revenue-generating service for existing network providers," said LeClaire. "The MetaSwitch Forum is a great networking event where service providers come to learn about the carrier-grade AlertSlinger capability in VoIP, wireline, or wireless networks by flexibly delivering content notifications via voice call, short message, instant message, or email."
09th April, 2008
Morrisville NC, April 9, 2008 - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today released its decision to approve a nationwide alert system for timely communication of emergencies. Under the plan, the FCC will appoint a federal agency to create the messages and pass them on to service providers, an FCC representative said earlier. Once that agency is named, the participating providers will have 10 months to comply with the new system requirements.
Velleros Inc., an emerging provider of high capacity network-aware content notification systems immediately responded to the decision with the following quote from Jay Whitehurst, Velleros' Chairman: "We are very pleased that the FCC has supported the impending requirement for a country-wide notification system. We firmly believe that service providers have a civic duty to provide mass communications that can be utilized during an emergency. Carriers have robust networks that when enabled with Velleros notification capability can help protect lives and property in times of need. Velleros is been proud to participate in the plan for the Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) and we look forward to deploying our compliant AlertSlinger solution with carrier customers over the next few months.
Velleros commends the FCC commissioners for reviewing the CMAS proposal and making the right choice to further the recommendation. We also recognize the dedicated contributors within the wireless community that have since approved the decision and verified their participation in deployment. This decision ultimately protects us all.
13 March, 2008
Notification solution vendor Velleros has a message for carriers, stated in the company's blog: It is the carrier's civic duty to provide mass communications portals that local officials can use during an emergency and leverage their robust networks to help save lives. The company, which received its series-A funding in January, is launching a full-force campaign to ensure they do just that. Velleros, a supplier of high-capacity, network-aware content notification platforms, recently released its
AlertSlinger, a suite of applications that automatically notifies a user-defined distribution list based on certain inbound and outbound calls. At the Comptel show in February, Velleros announced its first customer to deploy the platform. Houston-based i3, a wholesale network provider and aggregator, will offer the hosted solution to its 55,000 VoIP subscribers, cable MSOs, large enterprises and other carriers. While no other announcements have been made, Velleros is currently in trials with several other carriers and plans to sign deals within the year.
With AlertSlinger, users define how they want to receive alerts, whether over SMS, wireless or wireline voice call: VoIP, instant message or email. Depending on the services the carrier, Velleros's target customer, offers, its consumers can also select their notification method contingent on the nature of the alert. Joe Cobbs, vice president of operations for Velleros, envisions the alerting service being used for any type of weather alert, civic emergency such as a chemical spill, campus or University crisis or in the enterprise space.
The company's founders come from backgrounds in software and media gateway manufacturing. Combined, founder and vice president of business development Taren Patterson and Cobbs have more than 30 years of experience in telecom, with careers forged at Tekelec and Nortel's Genband center. Patterson said Vellero's heritage building robust carrier networks is what makes them well-suited to address the rapidly growing need for an emergency alert system.
"We saw the need last year," he said. "This space was going to heat up, especially with the events taking place, and we thought the carriers were the best, most logical provider based on the kind of network they already provide to add this type of service to the portfolio." For the most part, carriers today do not offer any type of emergency alert system, yet most are looking at ways to incorporate it into their offerings. Patterson said that the solutions that do already exist for alerting, primarily from content aggregators, are largely inadequate. Most rely on email to SMS message solutions, which is both unreliable and extremely slow. According to Patterson, it has been well documented that the wrong people were hosting these solutions. As emergency situations are times of heavy network congestion, something more had to be done.
The solution Velleros came up with is all IP-based to offer more flexibility in managing network congestion. The platform resembles a softswitch with the capability of routing and translating groups of messages through various networks – both public and private, defined through software. The technology works as a push device to deliver the message through the appropriate network to the appropriate end user. Velleros has several patent-pending software algorithms to enable this network congestion control and throttling.
"We can throttle messaging at different rates to each one of the network elements individually," Patterson said. "So, we are never going to exhaust a given route through the network. It allows our carrier customers to engineer the capacity versus just dumping as many messages as possible onto a network. This works really well from an SMS standpoint."
One AlertSlinger chassis can notify at a rate of 576,000 voice-calls per hour assuming a 30-second hold time in addition to SMS messages and emails that are sent. According to the company's blog, this totals more than one million people that can be alerted per hour.
"We put that responsibility, that capability, to the carrier to be able to throttle the calls that come out over their network equipment, so they don't overload a switch or an MSC or downstream base station if it's a local area," Cobbs said. "Especially on the messaging side, because you would flood the local switch with SMSs and potentially bring it down. The more carriers we spoke to, the more important it was that we were able to do something to help them be able to provide network-aware throttling."
The Virginia Tech massacre and Hurricane Katrina serve as the flagship examples of why a service like this needed. Yet as school shooting or natural disasters continue to occur, the need for this type of service is continually validated, Cobbs said. As such, the service has gotten positive feedback from the carriers Velleros has approached.
"They don't offer the service, and they think that they can add to the portfolio relatively cheaply," he said. "It is an application that sits on their network as it is today, and they can potentially get additional revenue or they can better service their community. There is many ways they are spinning this to improve their image, reinforce their brand and make some more money."
The business model for the service is at the carrier's discretion, but Cobbs envisions a subscription service being the most viable. Other methods could include a pay-per-use model for situations, like an emergency, where the usage would be confined to a short timeframe. He also could see the service being paid for by the city or community using it for weather alerts and other notifications. Down the line, using advertisements to subsidize the cost of the emergency alerts is another practical option.
http://telephonyonline.com/voip/news/velleros-emergency-notification-0313/index.html
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