Alarm Via IP Phone/ANDTEK Integrates Paging and Conference Services into Existing Unified Communications Network

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The Swiss commune Oberwil is working with a central, easy and reliable alarm system management via IP phones now, without additional installation and operation costs. Using “AND Phone Broadcast” every employee receives an information as soon as the alarm system is activated. This way false alarms can be avoided outside regular business hours.

Munich/Hallbergmoos, Bavaria, Germany., November 30, 2011 - (PressReleasePoint) - The Swiss commune Oberwil is working with a central, easy and reliable alarm system management via IP phones now, without additional installation and operation costs. Using “AND Phone Broadcast” every employee receives an information as soon as the alarm system is activated. This way false alarms can be avoided outside regular business hours.
 
 
The building of the Swiss commune Oberwil being situated in spitting distance to Basel is secured by means of an alarm system being activated at predefined times.
The predefined and fixed activation of the security system, however, turned out to be not very feasible since due to the variable business hours the risk of false alarms was preprogrammed. Therefore about 100 commune employees should have been given the possibility to deactivate the alarm system if needed and to reschedule the activation to avoide false alarms.
 
“We were looking for a solution with easy handling”, says Sandra Müller, deputy manager of Financial Department and IT administrator of the commune Overwil. Moreover the integration of the alarm system should have been done without additional installation and operation costs explains Müller.
 
Integration of the alarm system into the unified communications environment
With “AND Phone Broadcast” they found the adequate solution. In combination with the “ANDTEK Application Server” (APAS) this software provides for a two-way communication between IP phone users and alarm system. The ANDTEK solution is connected with the Cisco Unified Communcation Manager via the IP network. Simultaneously the communal alarm system is made IP compatible by means of an I/O module. The ANDTEK solution receives a corresponding status message via the I/O module as soon as the alarm system is activated. Then sends a corresponding announcement respectively paging to all assigned IP phones.
Thus every employee still residing in the communal building gets a message about the activation. Provided that they are authorized – they now have the possibility to reschedule the system activation via hot key in the web-based “AND Phone” interface. This offers a high degree of comfort and flexibility with consistent security. Using the ANDTEK solution “we did not have to organize an external service provider taking care of the alarm system on site", says Sandra Müller of the commune Oberwil.
 
Paging and conference services for the efficient corporate communication
Beside the possibility to send/receive messages to/from IP phones the integration of “AND Phone Broadcast” into an existing unified communications environment offers a variety of additional services.Users can easily and quickly start immediate conferencing without any specific dial-in number or password. All attendees are automatically contacted and the IP phone display shows all attending persons in real-time. A main advantage of  “AND Phone Broadcast“ is the possibility to manage crisis conferencing being of special interst especially for rescue teams and in critical environments like flight control or military operation areas. Here user can interrupt active phone calls and the attendee is connected to the conference even if he is just talking on the phone to someone else.
 
Beside immediate conference calls “AND Phone Broadcast” can also be used for alarm and emergency announcements (for example in case of fire). Due to the simple administration the user can generate and easily manage/change different groups containing an unlimited number of attendees according to local and functional aspects. This way it is possible to reach smaller groups of IP phones as well as entire parts of a building or the entire company including thousands of telephones.
The solution guarantees that every employee receives the emergency announcement, even if he is doing a phone call – since the announcement  can be heard even if someone is talking at the moment because same has priority.
 
Loudspeaker and amplifier integrated into the IP communication network via “Power over Ethernet” facilitate the handling of “AND Phone Broadcast”. E.g. the broadcast range can be increased considerably and therefore the solution is intended for outdoor applications as well.
 
 
For text copy and pictures please visit http://www.fuchs-pressedienst.de
 

ANDTEK GmbH, founded in the year 2000, is specialized in intelligent and custom-made unified communications applications and additional benefit services. The solutions developed and implemented by ANDTEK support companies of all areas of business in improving communication processes and open up innovative possibilities to use the IP telephony like for example voice recording, presence services or security applications. Among other things ANDTEK's IP communications solutions are predestined for finance companies, public service, health care, trade, industry and judiciary.