Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1132978
8 I ICT TODAY COMMUNICATIONS AND MASS NOTIFICATION In 2013, mass notification systems were restrictive and controlled in their operation; they needed to perform basic functions. The pre-scripted mass warning messaging had five basic requirements: 1. Who is sending the alert? 2. What is happening? 3. Who is affected? 4. What action should be taken? 5. Time and date stamp. Today's interactive mobile communication applications tell the entire story of someone experiencing an event, rather than the legacy system's "snapshot in time." The ability to send important mass notifications or alerts to any number of people at once, allowing for immediate, individual responses with an audit trail, is often a primary investment before other situation awareness tools. An "I'm OK" response plus the time of travel a mass notification alert takes to reach an individual furthest from its origination is important. Notification of a moving threat to employees in proximity of the emergency is critical. At an Ivy League working group meeting of school safety and security practitioners, the following question was asked: "What is the greatest challenge this year?" A common theme in the answers was that several of the universities could not guarantee that all students and faculty were receiving mass notification within a reasonable time frame. Two of the participants answered that notification could take 20 to 40 minutes in extreme cases. A credentialed BICSI member recommending ICT infrastructure changes to schools, universities and other enterprise facilities is an excellent opportunity for the BICSI RCDD and integrator and a necessity for the end user. Indeed, some of the delays could be attributed to over utilized voice over internet protocol (VoIP) controls or network congestion points. However, the path to speed and safety lies with needs identification, redesign and possibly an upgrade to a system focused on interaction and location of the individual in or moving toward the danger zone. Simply put, one-way communication is unacceptable for most public safety applications. A credentialed BICSI member recommending ICT infrastructure changes to schools, universities and other enterprise facilities is an excellent opportunity for the BICSI RCDD and integrator and a necessity for the end user. IP VIDEO TECHNOLOGY ADVANCES— PRIORITIES COME INTO FOCUS In 2013, the primary components of electronic school safety and security included communications, mass notification, video surveillance, and manual lockdown systems. Copper and optical fiber ICT infrastructures mainly supported these systems with IT departments virtually separating high payload applications, such as the video surveillance systems (VSS). YouTube's mobile application was introduced in 2012 and viewing IP video streams on a smartphone or tablet was becoming immensely popular with retail and public safety professionals; however, it did not become the primary means of school surveillance, which remained at the command center. VSS was also largely used as a forensic tool and less for real-time situation awareness, partly due to network bandwidth availability and the challenges of decoding a real-time video stream on a mobile platform. Although communications and mass notification remain primary tools for public safety, first responders and safety and security practitioners, VSS is moving forward as a real-time situation awareness tool. However, end users are cautious about committing video manage- ment system (VMS) or physical security information management system revenue on software licensing, potentially leading to less video surveillance coverage. Today, new software leverages the use of existing VSS with AI-based weapon recognition software (Figure 1). A small AI application that is installed in an IP camera