Partnership integrates message distribution systems, enablesemergency managers to warn public through mobile devices

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Global Security Systems (GSS) and Northrop Grumman today announced a major teaming agreement with Northrop Grumman Corporation’s (NYSE: NOC) Mission Systems sector to deploy a national, state and local alert and warning system that leverages wireless communications infrastructure and consumer devices. The combined systems will allow the president, state and local officials,  large municipalities, critical infrastructure and emergency management agencies to seamlessly and immediately communicate with first responders as well as citizens via cell phones, PDAs and personal wall-mounted devices in the event of a war, natural disaster, national, regional or local emergency. In particular, this collaboration would offer a turnkey solution for the deployment of an Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or other state and local emergency management organizations.
“Seven years after the 9-11 terror attacks, it is clear that the need to alert first responders and citizens in the event of a disaster via text message, cell phone or other PDA-type devices still exists” said Robert Adams, CEO of GSS. “We, like emergency management officials throughout the country, understand that the most effective way to save lives in the event of a disaster is to quickly alert individual citizens in the widest, easiest way possible. This combined system does exactly that. Both GSS and Northrop  will continue to assemble a group of stakeholders in the interest of working with the Department of Homeland Security to begin implementing an effective Public Alert and Warning System.”

Advantages to the Combined NG and GSS Alertsystem include:

1.    Alert Framework spanning multiple agencies and levels of government

2.    Installed base at EOCs and UASI Centers with authenticated messaging

3.    Rapid “on-ramp” of mobile service providers & device integration labs

4.    Expertise in S&T demonstration and transition programs

5.    AlertFM’s grouping technology enables alerts to be sent to a specific zip code or neighborhood, rather than an entire community.

6.    The system uses an FM chip that can be inserted into many common devices such as cell phones, pagers, smoke detectors, PDS, and other devices to make them “GSS-enabled” and able to receive alert messages.

7.    Standard alert notifications will include weather, homeland security, and local alerts including traffic emergencies and Amber alerts.

As part of the team with Northrop, GSS will contribute its expertise in state and local aggregation of emergency messages and hands-on experience in developing and deploying the AlertFM system. That technology would serve as a key component of the national turnkey solution advanced by Northrop and GSS.

Founded two years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, GSS served on the FCC-established committee to develop Commercial Mobile Alert Standards (CMAS), in part because it had developed a technology, marketed as AlertFM, which emergency management officials can use to create and send digital alerts and messages, including National Oceanic and Atmospheric (NOAA) weather warnings, evacuation instructions, homeland security notices, Amber Alerts and other emergency information to first responders, school officials, businesses and citizens based on geographic or organizational groupings.

GSSNet Alert FM is currently installed in more than 85 FM stations in seven states (La., Miss., Ala., Ariz., Tenn., Fla., and Va.). The devices currently receive content from broadcasting partners, as well as state and local agencies to ensure wide distribution of NOAA, DHS and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) content including Presidential Alert, Amber Alert and Imminent danger alerts. Partners such as Northrop Grumman currently manage the information technology infrastructure at Emergency Operating Centers in 80 U.S. cities, many of whom actively test systems under the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI).

For more information about GSS and the AlertFM technology, please visit www.alertfm.com, www.gssnet.us and www.aen911.com.