BlackBerry AtHoc Crisis Communications System

When you’re running an event as complex as the G7 Summit, nothing ever goes exactly as planned. Anything can happen. BlackBerry AtHoc helps ensure that no matter what issues we encounter, we’re ready to address them quickly and efficiently.

We were initially drawn to BlackBerry AtHoc because we knew BlackBerry had an established history within healthcare and government. Given our performance and reliability issues with our previous solutions, we didn’t want to expend any time and effort on a company that didn’t have some experience.

AtHoc Connect is helping us bridge a serious communications gap between people who are located physically close to each other in the same facility, but on different networks. The most important feature for us is security of communications, and the Connect network is certainly secure.

Emergency notifications that used to take us 90 minutes to deploy are now communicated within 90 seconds using AtHoc.

The digital displays and Cisco IP phones are really important to us because we know that passengers and employees pay attention to them. We wanted the integration that AtHoc could deliver because that will let us manage all the displays from the same screen.

Though we share similar emergency alerting needs with other Air Force commands, we also have unique requirements, including the need to call up reservists into active duty to assist in responding to emergencies. As we evaluated different solutions we needed to ensure the one we selected was comprehensive and able to reach people no matter where they are located, on or off base.

I have a single Emergency Manager that covers the entire garrison from Grafenwoehr to Garmisch. Anything we can do that allows other trusted agents to assist managing our administrative data input for our communication capability will allow [Kim] more time to focus on other aspects of our Protection Program.

We needed a technology partner to be just as flexible, agile, and innovative as our project was. We wanted to do extraordinary things out-of-the-box without having to invent a wheel. We looked for companies that could meet our rigorous demands, and found that with AtHoc.

The new system had to support both existing infrastructure and legacy devices. We also needed to upgrade our existing devices and augment the older ‘red phone’ notification system, which had limited capabilities.

When disaster strikes, BlackBerry AtHoc is there when we need it, allowing us to keep our people safe. It’s like insurance from that perspective – something you can rely upon in an emergency, but whose value you don’t realise until you need it.

With AtHoc’s capabilities, we’re able to get alerts out much quicker than we used to and coordinate a far more effective response to emergencies. When it comes to incidents where lives are at stake, that’s a level of value you cannot truly quantify.