My e911 brings Personal E911 protection to smartphone users
By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 21 April 2010, 17:32 IST
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San Antonio: RedSky Technologies, the provider of automated E911 solutions to the enterprise, launched My e911, a downloadable smartphone application that provides personalized E911 protection while improving security on college and corporate campuses. The announcement was made today at the 2010 Annual Conference of ACUTA, the Association for Information Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education. In the event of an emergency, smartphone users with My e911 can dial 9-1-1 with confidence knowing their call and location information will be routed to the proper public safety answering point (PSAP) for fast response from police, fire and ambulance. At the same time the 9-1-1 call is routed, My e911 notifies campus or corporate security with a Google map pinpointing the exact location of the caller to speed on-site emergency response. Smartphone users with My e911 also can set up personal emergency contacts to receive the same notification in the event of a 9-1-1 call. "Many colleges and enterprises have students and employees who rely on smartphones for their communications and this creates a real campus safety issue in the event of an emergency. My e911helps campus security teams manage emergency response to smartphone users who dial 9-1-1 when on campus," said Nick Maier, RedSky's Senior Vice President. The downloadable My e911 application can be preconfigured by college and enterprise IT or security organizations to make campus security the default entity to be notified of all 9-1-1 calls. My e911can then be distributed to smartphone users via college or corporate Web portals. An easy-to-use mobile Web interface helps smartphone users create their personal emergency contact notification list. My e911 captures 'best available' location information when a 9-1-1 call is placed using a priority hierarchy of GPS, then WiFi, then cell towers. The application continues to poll for new location information while the 9-1-1 call is underway to constantly improve the precision of the location data. If the smartphone user is on the campus WiFi network when placing an emergency call, My e911 communicates with RedSky's E911 Manager to poll the WiFi network and determine the precise location coordinates of the caller. The software can continue to track callers who may be moving or running in an emergency. My e911 is designed to be integrated into existing campus or enterprise application delivery platforms and is compatible with the leading smartphone operating systems including Apple iPhone, BlackBerry and Google Android. When combined with E911 Manager and any of the leading WiFi networks, My e911 becomes an important component of an integrated location and security management strategy.

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