Hyper-Reach, in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security, has released Hyper-Reach Express, a message origination system to enable emergency centers and law enforcement agencies to broadcast “just in time” messages via cell phone text messages to all qualified cell-phones within a geographic area.
The Department of Homeland Security, through FEMA, has been developing an emergency notification system called IPAWS. Using the CMAS portion of the IPAWS system, 911 centers, police and other governmental emergency agencies can now send emergency messages via broadcast text message to anyone within the geographical boundary designated for that message. The message is broadcast directly from cell towers to all cell phones within range, and only those cell users who are in the range of towers where danger is imminent will receive the text. The message is free for both sender and receiver. FEMA manages the IPAWS program and works with qualified emergency notification providers to make this service available. The only cost for local authorities is the software used to send the messages.
Hyper-Reach, a Rochester, NY telephony firm, has developed the software needed for sending IPAWS/CMAS messages anywhere in the US and is offering the software as a service called Hyper-Reach Express(tm). The service is available on a stand-alone basis or as an added feature of its well-established Hyper-Reach Emergency Notification Service, which provides mass notification to land-line phones, registered cell phones, email and SMS (text) addresses.
