Communication When It
Matters Most
The Importance of Speed and Reliability for Mass Notification Systems
Executive Summary
The rise of notification technology has coincided
with an increase in citizen demands for transparent
communications from their leaders. These developments
have led to rapid adoption of mass notification systems by
city and county governments. As technology evolves and
expectations heighten, municipalities must continuously
evaluate their approach to communicating with citizens.
What makes for a successful mass notification system
and how can you be sure you are getting a solution that
meets your needs?
Notification providers offer a wide range of features and
functions, but there is one feature that government leaders
cannot take for granted: reliability. Local governments
need a notification service that delivers messages rapidly,
without delays or excuses.
Evaluating a mass notification system and its ability to
meet a community’s speed and reliability requirements
rests on three factors: capacity, message delivery
options and redundancy. It is critical to examine each
of these factors closely for governments to understand
their options, and select an approach that will allow
them to communicate effectively with citizens when it
matters most.
“We live in uncertain times and
we need the ability to be able
to communicate quickly and
effectively with the public.”
Dennis M. Sullivan
Alderman at Large
City of Somerville, Mass.
With the wide variety of service providers claiming to
meet these requirements it is important to employ a
standard set of selection criteria and not simply rely
upon claims made in marketing materials or by company
representatives. Seek providers which can demonstrate
proven track records of uninterrupted service delivery
and can offer the capacity, redundancy and security
your community may need no matter what situation
it may encounter. Service providers that already have
years of experience meeting the needs of government
institutions and the communities they serve are generally
more likely to understand the unique requirements of
your city or town.
The Rising Use of Mass Notification
Systems
In the past, when community officials needed to get the
word out to citizens quickly, they had limited options.
They could share information with local media, but
that was time-consuming, and news filters and bias
were problematic. They could use mail and newsletters,
but those were expensive, and not relevant for rapid
messaging. Warning sirens were more immediate, but
lacked versatility.
Over the past decade, however, mass notification
systems have arisen that empower government officials
to contact constituents rapidly via phone, e-mail and text
messages. This has coincided with an increased demand
from communities for transparent communications from
the leaders that serve them, particularly when it comes
to matters of homeland security, natural and manmade
disasters and missing persons.
Adoption of Mass Notification Systems (MNS) has been
rapid. In fact, a May 2010 study by Galain Solutions
found that just over 50 percent of respondents in
local government say they currently have access to a
telephone-based mass notification system. Roughly the
same percentage say they have access to a system that
will deliver e-mail or text messages to citizens, although
25 percent of these respondents report that this is a
separate system.
The rapid pace of technology innovation, emerging
communication channels, and new modes of deploying
software-as-a-service require that municipalities
continuously evaluate their approach to government-tocitizen communication and assess overall performance.
Understanding key requirements and capabilities of
best-in-class solutions is critical to ensuring that local
governments continue to communicate effectively in
the face of changing needs.
With the march of technology, MNS providers have also
introduced a growing number of related features to
their core communication services. When local officials
go shopping for a notification provider, they re often
presented with laundry lists and endless checkboxes
of features and functions. Determining which criteria
to prioritize can be a difficult challenge.
Steven Trask, Deputy Police Chief for the Town of
Framingham, Mass., echoes that sentiment, “In my business
you have to notify a lot of people in a hurry, and if I can’t
get the message out that could mean lives. At critical times
you want a service that is reliable, fast, and easy to use.”
Here, the Galain study offers further validation. The study
evaluated a number of factors that could contribute to
government satisfaction with mass notification systems,
including speed of message delivery, reliability, security,
reporting, customer care and cost. The study found that,
by far, municipalities rated speed of delivery and customer
care as most critical to user satisfaction.
While municipalities have begun to use notification systems
for everyday, non-critical information such as street
closures or trash pickup changes, when it comes to urgent
messages, speed and reliability really matter. Here are just
a few examples:
•When an elderly man with Alzheimer’s
disappeared from his family’s home, police in
Belmont, Mass., solicited the community’s help to
locate him. He was found an hour later safe and
unharmed thanks to timely Blackboard Connect™
alerts and six leads that police received from
citizens within minutes of message delivery.
• The Barrington Hills, Ill., Police Department used
Blackboard Connect to advise residents of two
urgent situations in one day— a flooding incident,
and a car chase which resulted in a hit-and-run
car accident. By notifying and updating residents
in real-time, the officials were able to keep 911
lines free for true emergency calls and residents
out of harm’s way.
Just over 50 percent of respondents in local government
say they currently have access to a telephone-based mass
notification system.
The Importance of Speed and
Reliability
Based on discussions with city management and first
responders, fast and reliable citizen communication tops the
list of important criteria when assessing mass notification
systems. “We live in uncertain times and we need the ability
to be able to communicate quickly and effectively with
the public,” said Dennis M. Sullivan, Alderman at Large,
City of Somerville, Mass.
2
• When a tanker truck carrying 8,000 gallons of
liquid propane overturned and blocked the only
road into St. James, N.C., traffic control and
resident safety quickly became a serious problem.
With a real-time Blackboard Connect message
from the scene, St. James officials informed
residents of the situation, reducing traffic
congestion and minimizing health risks.
Once a community experiences the benefits of fast, reliable
alerts from its local leaders there is no turning back.
Again, the Galain survey shows that speed of message
delivery is significantly more important than cost. This
bears out in reality. For example, the Town of Framingham,
Mass., has grown to appreciate the speed and reliability
that its mass notification service, Blackboard Connect
provides. However, when the Town changed providers, it
experienced major delays in message delivery. Community
goodwill eroded, and the Town quickly opted to return to
Blackboard Connect. This case demonstrates not only
that speed of delivery is critical to communities, but also
that its importance trumps cost.
“In my business you have
to notify a lot of people in a
hurry, and if I can’t get the
message out that could mean
lives. At critical times you want
a service that is reliable, fast,
and easy to use.”
Steven Trask
Deputy Police Chief
Town of Framingham, Mass.
Three Factors to Consider When
Assessing Speed and Reliability
In an article for Emergency Management magazine Rick
Wimberly, President of Galain Solutions, recommends
organizations ask themselves the question, “Can the
solution handle my load?” The ability to answer ‘yes,’
rests in a system’s speed and reliability.
Three main factors affect the speed and reliability
of a mass notification system and deserve careful
consideration.
1. Capacity. Timeliness is a key factor of successful
message delivery. In order for a rapid notification
system to deliver messages in a timely manner, system
capacity and call speed must be at optimal levels. For
purposes of comparison, an on-premises, hardwarebased auto-dialer can take hours to deliver a message
to just a few thousand homes. If power is unavailable,
such systems fail to function at all. Particularly in urgent
situations, today’s citizens expect prompt notification,
which cannot be provided by legacy technology.
Ideally, a mass notification system should have sufficient
capacity and speed to deliver millions of voice and
e-mail messages per hour.
2. Message Delivery Options. No government
organization can rely on one channel to communicate
important information. Governments must deploy a
multi-channel approach to ensure the broadest and
most timely dissemination and receipt of information
when it matters most. An ideal mass notification system
should support many channels—voice (both landline
and cell phone), e-mail, text messages, as well as social
media —through one single system.
The growing importance of social media channels
should not be underestimated. Younger constituents
and more tech-savvy segments of the population are
increasingly relying on their mobile devices and social
media tools to stay in touch and informed. The Pew
Internet and American Life Project reports that 35
percent of American adult Internet-users have a profile
on an online social network site. And according to
govtwit.com, 23 million people now follow government
entities on Twitter.
Today’s mass notification systems must be able to send
messages via a broad range of communication channels
through a single interface in order to streamline delivery
and receipt of time-sensitive information.
3. Redundancy. To be most effective, a mass
notification system must be available at all times.
Many providers rely solely upon their own telecom lines,
failing to provide sufficient redundancies for delivery.
While it might seem that provider-owned lines are
a superior approach, in truth, systems that use their
own lines are more subject to failure. Providers with a
sole source of capacity – owned or otherwise – leave
their clients no recourse when their systems fail or
clog with traffic.
Critical Factors for Successful Redundancy or Back-up
Systems:
Power Grid Interconnects: The continental United
States is divided into three main power grids: the
Eastern Interconnect, the Texas Interconnect, and
the Western Interconnect. The Eastern and Western
Interconnects have limited interconnections with each
other, while the Texas Interconnect is only linked with
the others via direct current lines. Having at least one
data center located in each interconnect, combined
with a two week backup power supply, ensures that
messages can be deliver even in the unlikely event of
an interconnect failure.
Multiple Data Centers: In order to provide uninterrupted
data access, a reliable notification system should
distribute its data across multiple data centers. Within
these data centers, applications and data should be
housed across redundant load-balanced servers, with
redundant backup systems, network firewalls, and
Internet uplinks.
Multiple Network Providers: To keep voice and
data messages flowing, a redundant system of
telecommunication and Internet service providers is
necessary. Using multiple providers for voice and data
transmission ensures uninterrupted message delivery,
even in the event of a significant service interruption
to one or more providers.
It can typically take hour for a high volume message sent by an auto dialer to reach its intended recipients.
Network Monitoring: Even with sufficient capacity
and redundancy, network traffic on the country’s
long-distance, wireless and local switch networks can
impede important messages. The best MNS providers
employ sophisticated algorithms to analyze network
congestion at regional and national levels to maximize
delivery speed and reliability at every given point of
each call.
Throttling and Load Balancing: Large numbers of
alert calls can overwhelm local telephone switches.
MNS providers need to manage call delivery in urgent
situations with call routing, throttling, and load balancing
expertise. It’s also important to blend message delivery
via standard telephone lines and VoIP to help disperse
the load placed upon all of the various pipelines available.
These steps maximize speed of delivery in the face of
extreme traffic at either the local or national level.
using the Blackboard Connect mass notification service.
“We informed constituents about pre-storm preparations;
kept them apprised of response activities, school closings,
etc. after landfall; and continued communications in its
aftermath—during clean-up and restoration of services,”
said Bruce Clawson, Texas City Emergency Management
Coordinator. “We received positive feedback from
numerous citizens, all grateful for the information
delivered to them in the calm, reassuring voice of a
municipal authority. Over the two and a half week span,
as citizens received messages and recognized the public
safety benefit we even experienced a two percent
increase in self-registration of cell phone numbers to
our Connect database.”
Talbot County, Md.: Sending Critical Information to
Residents Faster
When their existing notification system took more than a
day and a half to deliver messages to the county’s 36,000
residents, Talbot County, Md.
administrators switched to the
In an article for Emergency Management magazine
Blackboard Connect service to
Rick Wimberly, President of Galain Solutions,
ensure timely communication
recommends organizations ask themselves the question, in future urgent situations. The
solution was soon put to the
“Can the solution handle my load?”
test when the National Weather
Service predicted eight to 10
inches of snow—a paralyzing amount for the region. The
Continuous Business Continuity Planning: MNS providers
county’s emergency management team sent messages
should routinely evaluate and practice business continuity
in advance of the storm. When residents awoke to a
plans to ensure their teams are capable of responding
foot of snow on the ground the next morning, they
quickly and maintaining operability in the unlikely event
were grateful and expressed their appreciation to
of an outage or other disruption.
Talbot leaders.
Blackboard Connect at Work for
Government
Blackboard works with state and local governments
to deliver important, time-sensitive information with
speed and reliability.
Texas City, Texas: A Lifeline for Residents During
Hurricane Ike
For the residents of Texas City, Texas, Blackboard
Connect became a communications lifeline during
Hurricane Ike. From September 9 - 29, 2008, before,
during and after the hurricane, the Texas City Emergency
Operations Center sent 32 voice messages to over 19,000
households (over 600,000 total attempted deliveries),
4
“I can’t sing the praises of the system enough,” said
Michael Boldosser, Emergency Planner, Talbot County,
Md. “I do my best to get other county agencies involved
and to get them to use Blackboard Connect…I love it. I
love what it’s capable of doing, and it has really, really
worked well for Talbot County.”
Blackboard Connect for Government
Blackboard Connect for Government provides local,
state and federal government agencies with the ability
to reach tens of thousands in minutes. A fully managed
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution, Blackboard
Connect is designed for simplicity and ease of use,
and meets today’s stringent requirements for speed
and reliability.
Speed: Blackboard Connect allows you to send millions
of messages every hour via voice, text and e-mail, and
supports Facebook and Twitter social media channels
as well. Patent-pending call routing and throttling
technology provides you with the confidence that your
message will get through when you need it to the most.
Reliability: Blackboard Connect has a redundant, nosingle-point-of-failure system through partnerships with
multiple tier-one telecommunications providers, multiple
data storage facilities, and telecommunications data
centers across all three national power interconnects,
as well as a multimodal approach to message delivery.
With years of proven performance in the mass
notification industry, over one billion messages sent, and
dedicated 24/7/365 support for all users, government
leaders across the country are making Blackboard
Connect a cornerstone of their communication plan.
In 2008, over 370 million voice
messages and more than 46 million
text-based messages were sent using
the Blackboard Connect platform.
“After carefully evaluating
many notification options, our
county decided to go with
BlackBoard Connect due to its
experience in sending timesensitive messages, speed
of delivery, ease of use, and
calling capacity. Just recently,
we used Connect to alert
thousands of people in minutes
about both a tornado warning
and a missing person.”
David Martin
Emergency Management Director
Iredell County, NC
Conclusion
When it comes to assessing mass notification systems,
speed and reliability are the most important criteria for
city management and first responders. Government
and citizens will not—and often cannot—wait 24 or 36
hours for critical information about severe weather, a
missing person, or a manmade or natural disaster.
Moreover, local governments should consider three key
factors when evaluating a mass notification system to
ensure it is capable of meeting the highest standards
of speed and reliability: capacity, message delivery
options, and redundancy.
As a proven leader in mass notification systems,
Blackboard Connect continues to deliver the
performance requirements of local, state and federal
agencies across the nation. If your organization is
interested in finding a government to citizen mass
notification solution that measures up, consider
Blackboard Connect.
To learn more about Blackboard Connect,
visit www.blackboard.com/connect
www.blackboard.com/connect
650 Massachusetts Avenue, NW 6th Floor
Washington, DC 20001
1-800-424-9299, ext. 4
Copyright © 1997-2011. Blackboard Inc. All rights reserved. Blackboard, the Blackboard logo, BbWorld, Blackboard Learn,
Blackboard Transact, Blackboard Connect, the Blackboard Outcomes System, Behind the Blackboard, and Connect-ED
are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blackboard Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries.
U.S. Patent Numbers: 6,816,878.