Sprint tries geographically targeted mobile alerts
Pre-empting what’s certain to be federal guidelines for wireless emergency notification, Sprint has deployed a geographically targeted mobile alert service in Contra Costa County, Calif. using technology developed by SquareLoop. The service lets public and private sector officials send geographically targeted messages to subscribers based on their actual location rather than to a swath of phone numbers.
“The handset knows where it is,” said Tom Stroup, SquareLoop’s CEO. “That information is sent out to the handset and it makes the determination if it’s in line with its geographic coordinates.”
The initial information will be a text message that can be sent over existing mobile networks. Future enhancements could include text-to-voice and rich media content.
Contra Costa was chosen for the first deployment because its community warning systems manager, Art Botterell, “is one of the thought leaders in the emergency alerting space,” said Stroup. “We’ve done a pilot with them and now we’re moving forward to the commercial rollout. We definitely expect to take it to other jurisdictions throughout the country.”
The community or whatever agency—public or private—that wants to deliver messages pays for the use of the networks and the service. Mobile phone users receive it free of charge.
Even though there is no current requirement to push this sort of information to mobile phones, it makes sense for Sprint to partner with SquareLoop because “we don’t want to leave our customers in the lurch where they don’t have a solution,” said Chris Hackett, vice president of public sector sales programs. At Sprint. “Our take is that there has been no (federal) mandate that’s been put out there so we’ve been proactive in going out and finding the right partner.”
By geographically targeting users the emergency alerts gain credence, said Stroup because they “reach people where they actually are. One of the challenges in public safety is making sure that the information that they get is relevant.”
SquareLoop based its solution on technology developed by MITRE, a non-profit engineering development firm, so the military could geographically target emergency alerts.
“There are other features included in this such as unique alert tones and vibrating capabilities so people pay attention when the information is sent,” he said.
Users can also upgrade to get information on “areas of interest” such as what’s happening near a child’s school or throughout an enterprise campus, he added.
“There are an almost unlimited number of applications for this technology,” he said. “We felt starting with public safety was one of the most important.”