Our industry is event-driven. No matter how much we try to predict where our markets will go, it will be a situation, somewhere in the world, that will dictate our path and the types of projects that subsequently appear in front of us.
In response to these events, much money and time is spent on determining both how to prevent it from happening again and, since that is most often impossible, how to deal with it when it does happen. When this study is complete, trends usually appear that are not only applicable to the event at hand but also turn out to be relevant to the market in general.
The most recent example of a security trend to come out of current events is the problem of how to move large numbers of people out of, or keep them from entering, an area.
Alerting in a Campus Environment
The most common example of this problem is on a campus. This can be either an educational campus or a commercial one. The idea is the same. If an incident happens on the campus, it can be imperative anyone in the area be notified and moved out or kept out.
The difficulty here is that you have several different buildings, often set over a large area.
How do we get a common message to everyone, whether they are in a building or out in common open areas? How do we use the technology available to us in a converged environment to answer this question? How do we use what we know about security and networks to develop a mass annunciation system? And once we make the announcement, how do we follow up and make sure the crowds are doing what we need them to do?
One very important factor you will need to address is how to deal with the disabled. You can’t do a strictly audible announcement system, nor can you do a strictly visible one. This should not be new information to anyone. You will need to make sure your system can deliver an accurate message to people of all abilities, at any time, under any circumstance.
Audio Methods Can Miss Spots
Since our primary method of receiving announcements is audible, let’s start there. How do we distribute an audio announcement over a large area?
The first method is via loudspeaker. This is an inexact science at best, especially outdoors. There are many factors that go into reproducing audio over a large outdoor space. Professional audio system design requires, if nothing else, a whole lot of math.
When considering a loudspeaker-based system, the first question that has to be answered is what kind of area are you trying to cover with each speaker? Every speaker has a sensitivity rating, which is basically specified as a certain dB (decibel or volume) with the speaker output at 1W, measured from 1 meter away. The higher the dB number, the better the speaker, for the most part. So the question is: Do you want a large number of smaller speakers or a smaller number of larger, more powerful ones?
There are two problems with this approach. One is the issue of dead spots and intelligibility. Sound, especially in an outdoor environment, is very subject to reflection and interference. A message that is very clear 50 feet away from a speaker may be a garbled mess to someone around the corner or at a greater distance.
The other problem is one of practicality. The audio source needs to be distributed to all the speaker/amplifier locations, and the system is probably only going to be used for that one thing. It may not be an efficient solution.
Tying Intercoms Together
How about a solution that provides a distributed audio system but also can be used for other functions, or multitasked? Many campuses already have such a system. This can be found in the form of an intercom system, often within “blue light” stanchions.
These systems are becoming popular in campus environments to allow quick contact with security and emergency services. These stanchions are centrally located, usually in both populated and isolated areas. Leveraging the use of these and other types of intercom systems can provide a cost-effective solution for the customer, and possibly a labor savings for the integrator.
We need to consider turning this idea around to fit the annunciation application. Most, if not all intercom systems allow some sort of group call. This group call can also, again, generally be initiated both manually and automatically. If the intercom has standard audio inputs as well as a base microphone input, a prerecorded message can be sent throughout the campus upon some kind of trigger, either from an alarm or manually.
How VoIP and Video Can Help
So how does our convergence theme apply to all this? Well, one of the technologies that is allowing more and easier installations of these types of systems is voice over IP (VoIP).
While most of the traditional systems still use phones or other analog means, VoIP will be making an impact in this area soon. Thanks to Cisco, VoIP has begun the migration of PBX and other POTS systems into the digital realm, and there’s no reason to believe it won’t happen here either.
The use of VoIP offers the same benefits we speak about in other converged applications: simple Cat-5e/6 installation, leveraging existing infrastructure (in some cases), etc. Routing VoIP traffic, however, brings in complexity of its own. This traffic can be prioritized on the network via the use of QoS, or Quality of Service. This prioritization will ensure the traffic will get to its destination, when it needs to get there.
Switching gears to video, we will definitely use it as a verification tool to make sure our goal is being reached, or to track the crowds as they are moving. But how can we use video to get our message out?
Monitors can be placed inside buildings (and in some cases protected outdoor spaces) to display messages that coincide with audible announcements. Here again, the network can come into play.
The same video distribution network technologies that send content over the Internet can be used to send video announcements across a campus. More and more network switches are being pre-loaded with tools and protocols that make multicasting and other video-over-network technologies easier.
Here again, though, we deal with the concept of practicality. How do we justify adding a large number of monitors to a project just for emergency messages?
Returning to the concept of multitasking, if you do a Google search for “network video distribution” you will also see several entries pop up for something called content delivery. You see examples of content delivery every time you surf to a Web site in the form of advertising. This is one way to add more bang for the system’s buck.
Advertising is only one way to leverage these systems, though. Routine messages, especially in an educational setting, can also be delivered by this message. Whether school schedules, meeting schedules and locations, or simply the “news of the day,” you can maximize your customer’s investment and hopefully their satisfaction.
Don’t Miss the Opportunity
Mass annunciation is a seriously hot topic right now. It is a natural evolution of our industry. Take a look at all of your converged applications for these opportunities. They are out there, and technology is making it easier all the time.
