Acision and Seeker propose emergency notification system

Stuart Corner
Monday, 27 April 2009 11:01

Business IT - Technology

Australian wireless location technology company, Seeker Wireless, has teamed up with global mobile messaging company Acision to propose a system to locate mobile phones and in an emergency to target broadcasts to appropriate phones in the event of an emergency.

According to Seeker Wireless CEO, Chris Drane the proposed solution does not require any hardware in the mobile network, only a Seeker Wireless application that could be installed on any SIM card. And while its functionality would be greatly enhanced if phones are GPS capable this is not essential.

Bill Dekker, Acision's vice president for Australia, New Zealand and Pacific, estimated that a basic system could be set up for about ten million dollars, and he contrasted this with the situation in the US where, a mandatory system had been introduced to provide location information for cellphones making 911 emergency calls.

"In the US they have spent at least half a billion dollars developing a system that needs a special receiver in every cellphone," Drane said. "We could put together a system that would be equal in performance to the US system and much, much cheaper by combing our technology with GPS and WiFi."

In the system envisaged by Acision and Seeker Wireless for emergency notification the two companies' technologies would be integrated so that messages could be directed to phones in locations affected by an emergency and delivered via cell broadcast.

Dekker said: "All the infrastructure is already there for cell broadcast and it is independent" of SMS so if the network is really congested messages still go through.
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