Emergencies come in all shapes and sizes. When a big one strikes, you need to protect yourself and others. This is where organizations need an emergency notification system and the software that powers it.
In this Telerivet article, we’ll look at the types of emergency notifications you may want to consider and the software you can use to help you get there.
We’ll cover:
- What is emergency notification software?
- The origins of emergency notification systems
- Mobile emergency notification software for multinationals and NGOs
- All-in-one risk and alert notification software
- Emergency notification software for national & local government bodies
- Telerivet: Messaging when it matters - emergencies or not
What is emergency notification software?
Emergency notification software alerts people to danger across a range of communication channels. This is normally triggered by an immediate danger and typically requires large numbers of people to be made aware in real time. Emergency notification systems are also in place in factories or other smaller settings.
Emergency notification software is a vital and often unseen part of global technology systems.
Emergency notifications can come in many different shapes and sizes. Your first thought might be mass emergency notification systems; things like air raid sirens, nuclear alerts, or even Godzilla warnings blaring through the streets of Tokyo.
These are all large, dramatic examples of emergency notifications, but the use case doesn't need to be this extreme to be useful.
Emergency notification software is used by companies all around the world to alert people when something out of the ordinary happens. Your phone provider might use this software in case it needs to contact you, confirm your identity, or inform you of something important.
If you live in an area known for extreme weather events, your local government or a connected body likely has an emergency system in place. Emergency notification software is also a regular part of manufacturing practices, such as in the Toyota Production System. There is the concept of "Jidoka," which stresses the importance of building emergency notifications into systems to stop the process if something has gone wrong.
In this article, we're exploring a range of different emergency notification systems and the software that powers them, with a special focus on mobile communications and how they've changed emergency notification systems over time.
The origins of emergency notification systems
The form of emergency notification software that most people imagine when you describe these systems is likely something that falls under the category of a civil defense siren. This image is burned into our imagination from its presence in films and the spectacle of this kind of emergency happening, prompting a rapid response from large numbers of people.
While Godzilla might be a more recent reference, the civil defense siren as most people think of it originates—or at least was popularized—in Britain during the Second World War. London, in particular, had to defend against air raids by the Luftwaffe. The British didn't need to deal with ground attacks, but they did have to defend from bombs dropped by enemy planes.
These bombs were dropped on industrial targets all over England, and most places did not have a civil defense siren system in place to warn them. It was the law that everyone had to turn their lights off at night, keep curtains drawn, and not give any indication that there were people on the ground below.
During the Second World War, these planes had very limited map technology. They lacked radar, and the pilots largely had to guess that they were in the right place, dropping bombs on the right targets. However, when bombs were dropped successfully on key cities, particularly London, the sirens would sound, and people would take cover in basements, homemade shelters, or underground stations.
Before the age of mobile phones, simply making the loudest noise possible was the most effective means of warning people that an emergency was taking place. One of the last remaining sirens in Britain is in Hale, a small village now subsumed into the town of Altrincham in the suburbs of Manchester. This siren sits atop a telephone pole with its original wiring and electronics largely intact. It was put up in 1938, but as far as this writer is aware, it is no longer functional.
Instead, of course, we now live in the age of mobile warnings.
Mobile emergency notification software for multinationals and NGOs
Telerivet: A comprehensive solution for mobile emergency notifications
Telerivet is a winning choice for two different types of emergency notification scenarios.
The first scenario is emergency notification software for a multinational business. This kind of company might need to notify users or customers in the event of a data breach or service issues. Equally, it may choose to use this kind of notification software for an emergency related to its core service.
Providing time-sensitive, important notifications is a common course of business, particularly in tightly regulated fields such as healthcare, banking, or operating in highly regulated geographies such as within the EU. These multinational companies, when providing an emergency notification, need to be able to do so immediately and to all of their customers and users everywhere in the world in which they operate.
Telerivet offers connectivity completeness across mobile notification channels. This means that Telerivet connects to other connectivity tools, providers, and services, bringing them together as a cohesive suite of connectivity solutions. For example, a company may use Provider A to reach users in America, Provider B to reach users in Germany, and Provider C to reach users in Vietnam. With Telerivet, you can incorporate all three providers into its software. Telerivet can send notifications across SMS, voice, and popular messaging apps like WhatsApp and Viber.
Telerivet acts as the command center across all of these communication pathways. This means you can use all of those providers simultaneously and automatically to send an emergency notification. You can also use Telerivet's logic and campaign management tools, and they will take effect across all of the providers so that all customers in every geography can consistently receive a targeted message immediately and as they need it.
Using Telerivet provides a series of benefits
- First is the enhanced user experience, in that companies can provide a consistent experience to all users in all geographies. This allows them to devote more time to making sure that experience is effective and appropriate, rather than having to create a series of disconnected, siloed experiences, each requiring its own improvement and optimization.
- Second is the resource implications of this consistency. It means that you do not need to apply development resources to working on different providers independently or different customer journeys. Instead, you can focus your team around a single plan, which can then roll out to all people.
- Third is the reduced cost of being able to choose your provider and plug them into Telerivet’s connectivity system. This means that if one provider has reasonable rates in Country A, you can choose them there. But if their rates in Country B are above market rate, you can plug in a different provider for Country B.
The impact of this on small businesses, startups, and solopreneurs, while budget-sensitive, might be limited because they have few users or customers. However, the impact for large businesses operating at scale with a deep customer base can be really significant.
One example of this is the Asian super app, Grab, which uses Telerivet for notifications and user communication. This giant app has 38 million users each month across multiple countries. The flexibility that Telerivet gives in the choice of provider enables them to keep prices competitive for the consumer. Telerivet allows companies to be free from a walled garden of closed-off providers.
The second use case for which Telerivet is regularly used is a more niche area of emergency notification. Given that Telerivet has the ability to enable cross-border communications in any geography at competitive price points with high levels of reliability and security, it is a popular choice for organizations working on the edge of connectivity, such as nongovernmental organizations like the Red Cross or Norwegian Refugee Council.
These organizations turn to Telerivet to help them solve complex connectivity problems in the field. If you are a charity worker operating in a war-torn country, which already suffers from poor infrastructure and service provision, you need a reliable way to communicate with other aid workers and to provide effective and real-time warnings and emergency notifications to other members of your aid team.
Telerivet provides the opportunity for users to construct their own infrastructure to make communication possible. With Telerivet software, you can create custom gateways and broadcast channels, and use communication protocols like SMS, voice, Viber, WhatsApp, and USSD to construct the personalized solution that your use case requires for the connectivity challenges you face in a given setting.
This means that aid workers trying to do good in the most challenging scenarios are able to communicate and do so securely, even while war or famine rages around them. It's for this reason that Telerivet is one of the most popular connectivity solutions for the third sector, particularly among the big players that need to be able to deploy connectivity solutions at scale.
All-in-one risk and alert notification software
AlertMedia: Threat intelligence, emergency communication, and travel risk management solutions
AlertMedia stands out in the emergency notification software market as a comprehensive, all-around solution designed to improve employee safety, mitigate loss, and maintain business continuity. While some tools cater especially well to specific verticals like multinationals, governments, or NGOs, AlertMedia offers a versatile platform suitable for organizations of various sizes and industries.
AlertMedia’s core claim is that it focuses on ensuring the right message reaches the right person to accelerate response times. This approach is supported by features that go beyond typical mass notification systems. The platform combines threat intelligence, emergency communication, and travel risk management into a single, user-friendly interface.
One of AlertMedia's unique selling points is its fully integrated threat intelligence capability. This feature automatically identifies and informs contacts of local threats, allowing organizations to proactively respond to emerging risks. This is particularly valuable for businesses with operations or employees spread across multiple locations. Companies like JetBlue make use of this by knowing the routes of planned flight paths and their times, and being able to anticipate threats from unfolding events on or around those geographies.
AlertMedia’s threat intelligence tool is manned by an internal team that monitors ongoing and new threats around the world, feeding that information out to its userbase. This provides significant added value for companies that need to consider global safety information.
The platform also offers a wide range of communication channels, including text messages, emails, mobile app notifications, desktop push notifications, voice calls, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and social media.
AlertMedia's two-way communication functionality allows for quick feedback and status updates from recipients, providing decision-makers with up-to-date information during emergencies. The platform also supports geofencing, enabling targeted notifications based on geographical locations.
If you’re in the market for an all-in-one security solution, then AlertMedia is a really strong candidate to consider for your emergency notification software.
Emergency notification software for national & local government bodies
Alertus: Effective life saving notification measures for responsible governance
Alertus Technologies offers a Unified Mass Notification platform that finds its way into our list as a choice for both public and private sector emergency notifications, particularly in scenarios like local government hurricane warnings or similar large-scale emergencies. This system is well-suited for use cases that require rapid, widespread dissemination of critical information across diverse channels and physical locations.
The Unified Mass Notification platform is designed to streamline the monitoring and activation of alerts from a centralized interface. This unified approach is valuable for responsible governance in emergency situations, where quick, coordinated responses can save lives and minimize damage.
One use case for the platform's architecture is facility or campus-based setups; Alertus allows for the triggering of mass notifications across multiple channels, encompassing facility-based systems, networks, outdoor warning systems, and personal devices. This involves mobile alerts but also loudspeaker and alarm systems.
Alertus goes beyond software solutions to offer hardware components that feed into the mass notification system. These include panic buttons and wall-mounted tablet consoles, providing additional layers of accessibility and redundancy in emergency situations.
In addition to standard options like text messages, emails, mobile app notifications, and desktop push notifications, Alertus supports VoIP and IP phones, alert beacons, digital signage, and high-power speaker arrays. This range of channels is particularly beneficial in public sector scenarios, where reaching every individual through multiple means can be crucial. A really distinctive feature Altertus offers is the use of cell broadcasting. This channel can be location specific and issues an alert to the cell phones in the area. It’s only available to the government, mobile networks, and certain organizations with a large geographical footprint.
The platform's geo-fencing capabilities are especially relevant for local government use, allowing for location-based alerts that can be crucial in scenarios like hurricane warnings or localized emergencies. API integration and data syncing with internal systems means that the Alertus platform can work with existing government infrastructure and databases.
Alertus is a solid choice for public sector organizations that need to warn of hurricanes, terror incidents, or godzillas. It’s the choice for the dramatic film scene of an emergency.
Telerivet: Messaging when it matters - emergencies or not
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