Rave Wireless Enhances Campus Safety Solution Using T-Mobile's Nationwide Network

The ability to quickly and effectively transmit mass communications to organized bodies has become increasingly scrutinized at schools and other facilities, largely prompted by unfortunate events, both natural and mad-made. Perhaps the two most significant in recent memory are Hurricane Katrina back in August, 2005, and Virginia Tech University, in April, 2007.

 

One was naturally occurring; the other caused by a single individual, but both are textbook cases for the need to be able to quickly notify large constituencies in crisis situations. The incident at Virginia Tech, in fact, provided a significant push on the part of a significant number of schools to deploy new campus-wide notification systems. (Virginia Tech, in fact, tested its new system earlier this month.)

 

Given the dispersed nature of university students and staff, the most obvious method of communicating emergency information is through the use of cellular networks, an understanding that has prompted Rave Wireless to partner with T-Mobile on a campus safety initiative. Partnering with T-Mobile (News - Alert), and building a direct SMS bind into the T-Mobile network, Rave will be able to provide greater assurances as to the reliability of its solution.

 

Campuses that subscribe to Rave’s Rave Alert network, designed specifically to facilitate easy and effective delivery of important announcements — not only emergency, but other announcements that need to be disseminated quickly — to a large, dispersed population. In fact, Rave Alert can make use of text messaging capabilities, email, RSS feeds, and voice communications, allowing each customer to deploy whichever solution it deems most effective.

 

This is an opportune time for Rave to further develop its notification solution — including partnering with T-Mobile — as many more colleges and universities will be seeking solutions to satisfy HR-4137 (The Higher Education Act) recently signed into law. The Act requires all higher education institutions to deploy immediate emergency notification capabilities.

 

“Rave Wireless (News - Alert) is a leader in mobile safety applications and the first emergency notification vendor to implement a direct SMS bind to our network,” said Dave Fredericks, National Director for Products Solutions and Planning for T-Mobile. “We’re excited about Rave’s suite of mobile safety applications and the opportunity to package those with other offerings to provide great value to our customers.”

 

Rave claims its Rave Alert system outperforms other competitive solutions because it has focused on reliability, including this agreement with T-Mobile. Several institutions have already deployed Rave Alert, including Boston College, University of Colorado at Denver, Colorado State University, University of South Florida, and the University of Connecticut.

 

UConn tested the system with a broadcast to more than 16,000 message recipients, who had opted in to the notification system. The benchmark for such a test is a 95% delivery rate within 15 minutes, which UConn and Rave eclipsed in its testing, following which, UConn opted for the Rave Alert over alternative solutions.