TMCnet News
Campus Mobility on the Rise!NEW YORK --(Business Wire)-- Rave Wireless Inc. (www.ravewireless.com), the pioneer of mobile phone programs for colleges and universities, today announced that Colorado State University and St. Michael's College (Colchester, VT) have selected the Rave Alert(TM) system for broadcast emergency alerting. In addition, the company announced that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) will offer its students specially-tailored mobile phones this year through the Rave Campus(TM) mobile phone program. Today's announcement illustrates the trend of colleges and universities starting out with broadcast mobile alerting services as a stepping stone to more comprehensive mobile phone programs. Colorado State University and St. Michael's College are making their initial foray into campus mobility with a reliable, scalable and easy-to-implement Rave Alert solution for broadcast text alerting. Rave Alert is a hosted solution that works with any cell phone and can be up and running within days. The Rave Campus mobile phone program at UNC will include the following features: -- Rave applications for mobile learning, class and scheduling updates, academic assessments and polls, local transportation schedules/updates, event and social information, weather alerts, and other student services. The Rave application suite brings the university to mobile devices with the immediacy students demand and the personal touch they deserve. -- Rave Guardian(TM), the innovative GPS-based application that puts a virtual public safety officer at every student's side when they need it. Security on Campus, a non-profit organization dedicated to safe campuses, chose Rave Guardian for the 2006 Clery Award in recognition of excellence in security. -- Managed services: Rave will work with local mobile carriers of choice to improve cellular coverage on campus and to implement and manage a discounted campus sales program offering Rave-enabled phones and calling plans to students. The Rave Campus mobile phone program effectively creates one big "family plan" for an entire campus community, with features such as unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling and discounted data plans for everyone enrolled in the program. For institutions that are signing up for Rave Alert, Rave Wireless will partner with them to ensure their emergency broadcasting solution is in place and ready by next semester. Rave has been providing institutions with broadcast text alerting technology for nearly three years. In addition to serving as an emergency mass communications tool, Rave Alert has been used successfully to communicate with students about academic and administrative matters, often through integration with an institution's existing student information system or learning management system. Usage to date indicates students are more responsive to text messages than they are to email or other traditional forms of communication. "Rave's focus on higher education provides us with a deep understanding of the diverse mobility needs of colleges and universities today," says Rodger Desai, CEO of Rave Wireless, Inc. "We understand that higher education institutions wish to form and grow mobile communities to varying degrees. We provide a spectrum of capabilities from a hosted broadcast alerting solution that easily integrates into your existing campus environment, to a more holistic mobility solution called Rave Campus for institutions looking to more fully leverage today's mobile devices." About Rave Wireless Rave Wireless (www.ravewireless.com) is the pioneer of mobile phone programs for colleges and universities. Rave solutions range from Rave Alert for simple and reliable broadcast text alerting, to Rave Campus for a complete mobile phone program. Delivering critical campus alerts, and providing access to innovative academic tools and time-sensitive community information, Rave allows college administrators to provide a personalized, real-time university experience on students' mobile devices. A trusted partner of top mobile carriers and leading enterprise software companies, Rave Wireless is headquartered in New York, NY. Investors include Bain Capital Ventures, Sigma Partners, and RRE Ventures. |
