[May 16, 2007] Prairie View A&M Enhances Security with Cistera Tweet Cistera Networks (News - Alert) (OTCBB: CNWT), a leading provider of Enterprise Application Platforms and Engines for IP Communications, announced today that Prairie View A&M University has joined the growing list of universities that have enhanced campus security by adding Cistera's Event Alerting and Notification Solutions for IP Communications. Prairie View A&M University, located in Waller County, north of Houston, was founded in 1876, and is a member of the Texas A&M University System. More than 8,000 students are enrolled at this university, which is noted for its commitment to excellence in teaching, research and service. Because of its rural location, the administration needed to enhance security by linking the university police department directly to Waller County's 911 emergency response center. A Cisco Unified Communications (News - Alert) solution was deployed at the campus with Cisco phones in every dorm and administrative building. The Cistera ConvergenceServer (CCS)™, the award-winning enterprise application platform for IP Communications, was selected because of the emergency alerting features available in the company's Event Alerting and Notification (EAN) solution. Prairie View A&M requested simultaneous alerting of the campus police department when 911 calls are made from campus phones to Waller County's emergency response center. In addition, they required that the campus police dispatcher have the ability to speak directly with the caller as well as record the conversations -- a key differentiator for Cistera Solutions. "Our campus police department has 33 members that are deputized by the State of Texas, but before we deployed the Cistera emergency 911 applications along with Cisco IP Communications, emergency calls went only to the county responders who then notified the university of the calls," commented Donald Keel, VoIP Manager for Prairie View A&M. "Now security and response times have improved because our dispatcher receives the call concurrently with Waller County, and campus police are able to respond immediately. The system identifies the location of the caller, so help can be dispatched as soon as the emergency call is received. Administrators, parents and students should feel safer, and our university is continuing its tradition of excellent service." "Our Event Alerting and Notification features, such as the E911 triggers, improve the university's ability to respond in emergency situations," says Derek P. Downs, President of Cistera Network. "E911 triggers are an example of the expanded functionality made possible with IP Communications. Return On Investment is a key driver for IPT adoption, but the added security that E911 delivers goes beyond that calculation -- what price can be put on speeding the response to an emergency?" The CCS, with its robust suite of application engines, offers comprehensive solution sets for multiple vertical markets, including Financial, Government, and Healthcare. These solutions deliver the functionality to enhance productivity and extend the capabilities of the IP Communications network. The CCS adds critical competency and features such as text and audio broadcasting, messaging, recording and content streaming within a Cisco Communications environment. Cistera has platforms that support 100 to 100,000 users. Voice over IP (VoIP) X A real-time communications system that converts voice into digital packets containing media and signaling data that travel over networks using Internet Protocol....more Internet Protocol (IP) X IP stands for Internet Protocol, a data-networking protocol developed throughout the 1980s. It is the established standard protocol for transmitting and receiving data in packets over the Internet. I...more [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]