Fire Departments Ditch Pagers for Amerilert Cell Phone Alerts

New service empowers dispatchers to reach firefighter’s personal cell phone for much less cost and hassle

Leesburg, Va. – Omnilert®, LLC, maker of Amerilert®, the leading unified notification system for mid-sized corporations, non-profits and government clients, today announced that many fire departments and rescue squads have recently dropped their pager contracts and switched to Amerilert for emergency dispatches and routine communication.

Some of the first responders to take advantage of Amerilert include the Bethesda Chevy Chase Rescue Squad, Cedar Park Fire Dept., City of Brandon Fire Dept., Countryside Fire Protection District, Fairfield Fire Local 1186, Jollyville Fire Dept., Madison MS Fire Dept., McLane/Black Lake Fire Dept., and Virginia Beach Rescue Squad.

Countryside Fire Protection District
Jim Dinsch is the Information Systems Coordinator at Countryside Fire Protection District in Vernon Hills, Ill. with a squad of 85 personnel. Mr. Dinsch said, “Our people were asking for the ability to get messages to their cell phones instead of having to carry another separate device.”

Mr. Dinsch continued, “Our previous in-house system was very limited to which pagers and cell phone carriers it could reach, and how they could be reached. The previous system also crashed three times in the last year and was very labor intensive. By contrast, the Amerilert solution is cheaper, more reliable, more accessible, easier to use, and maintenance free.

“Besides the cost savings, the two biggest factors are its 100% reliability and web-based ‘anywhere access.’ When we need extra personnel to come in for a fire, that’s a critical message for us, and we have not had any failures since switching to Amerilert.

“We use it on a daily basis for emergency alerts and routine messaging. We alert people if a vehicle is out of service for maintenance, if shift coverage is needed, about overtime opportunities, and a lot of different things.

“Because Amerilert is web based, we no longer need to be on an in-house network computer to send alerts, so it’s accessible from anywhere to anyone. Our command officer can get a message out from the field with his BlackBerry, and he can rest assured the message is going to get through. The Amerilert mobile interface is amazing.

“Amerilert is a very maintenance-free system. Once you set it up, there is really nothing that needs to be maintained on a daily basis. At the end of the day, the ability to provide messaging to your personnel on a means they want it on is a huge value.”

McLane/Black Lake Fire Department
Steve North is the Fire Chief at McLane/Black Lake Fire Department in Olympia, Wash. Chief North said, “Amerilert is an efficient, cost-effective method to provide notifications and alerts to our membership.

“With over 100 members in our department, trying to manage all the different electronic devices carried by our membership was becoming very problematic. We needed a method to provide notification through cell phones and pagers and Amerilert provided a mechanism to do that in a much more efficient manner.

“The Amerilert system is very cost effective as compared to similar type services. And, we had no problems getting it up and running in a short period of time. The user interface is very simple and straight forward.

“We use Amerilert multiple times a day. We have multiple groups set up – everything from our volunteer personnel to notification for state fire mobilization in the summertime.

“It’s very convenient to allow the membership to go in and change their own contact information and to provide a method for them to receive those alerts on multiple devices. All of that puts it back onto the membership and that method is far more efficient to provide those alerts.

“All in all, our membership has really enjoyed Amerilert. The member’s user interface is very user friendly, very intuitive, and it doesn’t take any training to get it up and running.”

Pricing and Availability
Amerilert is available for purchase today. At $1,495 per year, a squad of 100 members can send unlimited text and voice messages, create unlimited groups, and have unlimited administrators. That is less than $15 a year per person. Some competing alphanumeric pager services cost $15 a month, which is twelve times more expensive than Amerilert. Because Amerilert is web-based and leverages existing communication devices, new customers can have Amerilert deployed and operational in less than an hour.

About Amerilert
Amerilert is the leading unified notification system for mid-sized corporations, non-profits and government clients. Amerilert enables non-technical staff to send custom or predefined messages from one interface to thousands of people anywhere, anytime, on any device for improved crisis communications, emergency management and business continuity. Amerilert is the only mission-tested alert system that is CAP 1.1 compliant and favorably reviewed by DISA. Amerilert is used by the U.S. Army, Defense Logistics Agency, U.S. Attorney’s Office, GE, Boeing, Goodrich, Schering-Plough, Tennessee Titans, Philadelphia Zoo, and hundreds more. As a highly redundant web-based system, there is no software to install, no hardware to buy, and no additional phone lines needed. To learn more, visit http://www.Amerilert.com.

About Omnilert
Omnilert, LLC is the leading provider of unified mass notification systems for better crisis communications, business continuity and emergency management. The easy-to-use, self-service, Web-based system enables a single person to communicate timely information to thousands of people anywhere, anytime, on any device or service. The company’s 1,500 clients include the U.S. Army, GE, Harvard University, Tennessee Titans, UNICEF, Sanofi-Aventis, and the National Institutes of Health. Omnilert solutions are sold under the brand names e2Campus, Amerilert, and RainedOut. The privately held company is headquartered in Leesburg, Va., and at http://www.omnilert.com online.