Press Release
Everbridge, Inc., the global leader in critical event management (CEM), today announced that the company successfully deployed its Public Warning Cell Broadcast technology within three of the largest Mobile Network Operators in the United Kingdom, as a key technology component of the UK Government’s first-ever, nationwide emergency alerting system, planned for rollout later this year.
The system allows the government to reach people quickly during national emergencies such as public health crises, terror attacks, industrial incidents, earthquakes, and flooding. Powered by Everbridge’s industry-leading Public Warning technology, the UK Emergency Alert system will target mobile phones of residents and visitors present in the area impacted by an emergency. Everbridge contracts with mobile network operators EE – part of the British Telecommunications (BT Group), O2, and Three, represent the majority of UK mobile subscribers, and a population of over 65 million residents and 35 million annual visitors.
As UK Paymaster General Penny Mordaunt explained in an official statement, “The Emergency Alerts service will be a vital tool in helping us to better respond to emergencies, both nationally and locally. The concept was used to good effect during the pandemic when we asked people, via text message, to stay at home to protect the NHS and save lives. This new system builds on that capability and will allow us to more quickly and effectively get life-saving messages to people across the UK.”
Everbridge Public Warning, in partnership with three of the country’s largest mobile network operators, was used to complete two recent successful UK trials, the first in East Suffolk, the second in Reading. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Everbridge rapidly deployed the emergency alert system in under 100 days.
“The UK Government presented a challenge to deploy Cell Broadcast technology in a short timeframe in response to the coronavirus outbreak,” said Nazirali Rajvani, Director of Architecture, Solutions & Analysis at British Telecommunications. “We partnered with Everbridge to provide a trusted and proven world-class solution which was already in use in several other countries.”
The nationwide UK emergency alerting system implementation expands on Everbridge’s position as the global leader in population-wide Public Warning solutions used by over 1,500 municipalities, counties, cities, states and countries in every major region of the world including Europe, Asia, Oceania, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas. Everbridge serves more countrywide deployments than any other provider, enabling the Public Warning system for many of the most technically-advanced countries including Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Greece, the Netherlands, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Peru, and multiple countries across the Middle East and Africa; entire states including California, New York, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Florida, Odisha, Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C. and the United States Virgin Islands; counties within 49 of the 50 U.S. states and within all of Canada’s provinces, many of the largest cities in the world, and in support of the most populous Native American and First Nations tribes and indigenous populations across the globe. Everbridge also powers the front-end of the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS) gateway for the U.S. Federal Government to supplement their own communication channels for issuing live emergency and Presidential Alerts in the United States.
“We are pleased to be part of this important milestone and support the United Kingdom on the evolution of its national warning system,” said Valerie Risk, Vice President of Public Warning Solutions at Everbridge. “Every nation can benefit from a modern platform that reaches all citizens in times of crisis. Our Public Warning solution enables government organizations to immediately connect with every person in an affected area during a critical event regardless of nationality, residency or mobile handset type.”
Everbridge Public Warning leverages existing telecom infrastructure, with no opt-in required, to reach everyone within a geographic area to reduce disaster risk, support first responder communications, and analyze disaster communication effectiveness for subsequent mitigation activities. The platform is fully compliant with data privacy regulations including GDPR and allows public safety agencies to send an alert to any device within a few seconds without sharing any personal details, such as names or phone numbers.
Everbridge recently launched its enhanced Public Warning Center, the first-of-its-kind modular and multi-channel front-end interface featuring the ability to create and transmit a combination of cell broadcast and address-, group-, and location-based SMS alerts for countrywide alerting from a single console. The new Public Warning Center meets and exceeds the needs of any public authority looking for an advanced warning solution to protect its citizens and visitors – from EU-directive approved systems to more sophisticated hybrid and multi-channel alert and warning platforms. The company also recently announced a new patent for its revolutionary work in enabling end-to-end multimedia population alerting capabilities. The patent – one of more than 160 overall across Everbridge’s market-leading population alerting suite of solutions – highlights the need for delivering alerts through a combination of 5G, cell broadcast, and multimedia. Everbridge remains the leader in 5G integrations for public warning systems.
Everbridge featured some of the leading experts in the world on public alerting technologies at its recent global Road to Recovery leadership symposiums. The topic of population-wide alerting best practices was addressed heavily during the sessions which featured keynote addresses by Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, former U.S. Secretary of State Dr. Madeleine K. Albright, Virgin Group Founder Sir Richard Branson, representatives from EENA (the European Emergency Number Association), and government officials, city mayors, and emergency management professionals from Australia, Canada, and the U.S., to name a few.
