Why Everbridge Became RapidSOS Ready

About the Author

Francis S Willett – Principal Product Manager – Everbridge Corporation

Francis Willett joined Everbridge in September of 2009 and currently serves as Principal Product Manager. Willett is a Unified Communications and Mass Notification Solution subject matter expert. As Principal Product Manager, Willett has been responsible for the Product Management of our State and Local Government life safety product lines and third-party partnerships. For the last 12 years, Willett has focused his professional consulting and product management experience in mass notification, emergency management, incident command and unified communications to help customers and prospects be successful with the Everbridge Critical Event Management Solution. Willett has over 25 years of consulting experience implementing software and services to customers in the Enterprise Marketing Management and Critical Event Management industries.

Who is Everbridge? 

Everbridge, Inc. (NASDAQ: EVBG) is a global software company that provides enterprise software applications that automate and accelerate organizations’ operational response to critical events in order to Keep People Safe and Organizations Running™. During public safety threats such as active shooter situations, terrorist attacks or severe weather conditions, as well as critical business events including IT outages, cyber-attacks or other incidents such as product recalls or supply-chain interruptions, over 5,700 global customers rely on the Company’s Critical Event Management Platform to quickly and reliably aggregate and assess threat data, locate people at risk and responders able to assist, automate the execution of pre-defined communications processes through the secure delivery to over 100 different communication modalities, and track progress on executing response plans. Everbridge serves 8 of the 10 largest U.S. cities, 9 of the 10 largest U.S.-based investment banks, 47 of the 50 busiest North American airports, 9 of the 10 largest global consulting firms, 8 of the 10 largest global automakers, 9 of the 10 largest U.S.-based health care providers, and 7 of the 10 largest technology companies in the world. Everbridge is based in Boston with additional offices in 20 cities around the globe.

What challenge is Everbridge aiming to solve?

Emergency Communications Centers (ECC), a.k.a 911 dispatch, in many areas do not have access to accurate data about the caller and their location when the 911 call arrives at the ECC. These gaps are due to many reasons but not limited to a decline of landlines for 911 databases, the current technology that provides contact information and location from Landline, VOIP and Wireless differs across carriers and regions of the country. Private enterprise organizations or Higher Ed institutions are not always notified by ECCs that an employee or visitor on their campus has dialed 911 from one of their locations. Current solutions / data providers are unable to provide complete country-level coverage for the U.S. market:

• Relying on voluntary opt-in data has shown problematic/inaccurate and does not have national coverage. 
• Legacy ALI data providers are faced with the decline of landline and VoIP phone number databases across the country. 
• Currently there is no verified single source for wireless resident & business contacts available. 

These factors prevent first responders from getting critical information that helps them reduce lives lost, property destroyed, businesses disrupted, and dispatchers not having the necessary information to properly manage the situation when seconds count.

What is the Everbridge and RapidSOS solution?

Everbridge 911 Connect, a RapidSOS Ready solution, provides public safety alerting authorities and ECC dispatchers with life-saving incident-specific information about the caller that they are not receiving today (ex. name, location, static home address, additional information such as special needs, medical condition, photos, etc.) to accelerate emergency response and improve its efficiency. Should an incident evolve and impact more people, authorities have the ability to send mass notifications to a targeted area from one integrated critical event management platform.  

Why did Everbridge become RapidSOS Ready? 

At Everbridge we already have a strong State and Local Government presence not only here in the United States but across the globe. We feel that this partnership will help both Everbridge and RapidSOS transform how 911 calls are managed. Through a complete integrated offering into ECCs (CAD Integration, Location Mapping, 911 caller data feeds) we also will provide more enhanced data to dispatchers at the time of a 911 call, regardless of Phone Type (Wireless, Landline, or VOIP). 

Through the RapidSOS emergency response data platform, dispatchers have access to accurate location information and additional data from over 350+ million connected devices. With this partnership, Everbridge and RapidSOS can securely provide vast amounts of enhanced caller profile data to ECCs in seconds during an emergency. The Everbridge 911 Connect and RapidSOS integration will also provide ECC customers access to the Everbridge data ecosystem (Organization Contacts, Resident Connection, Opt-In). Unlike many data providers, we do not rely on legacy ALI data streams which limits them to only 512 bytes of data during a 911 call. 

RapidSOS is a trusted partner to Public Safety and has a solid network of over 5,200 ECCs in North America (and growing). Everbridge is partnering with RapidSOS knowing that the data we will be providing will be secure and delivered to ECCs without delay during a 911 call, staying true to our mission of keeping people safe and businesses running.   

What is Everbridge looking forward to in this partnership?

Everbridge and RapidSOS have aligned on our NextGen 911 strategy. Both companies are joining forces and producing industry-leading solutions as defined within our product roadmaps and partner relationships.

It is our intention to continue to lead the industry with our NextGen 911 core services and to build out our product portfolios in compliance with NextGen 911 standards as they’re developed here in the US and around the globe. 

As the NextGen 911 ecosystem evolves, both companies are committed to evolving alongside it in ways that empower our customers around the world. RapidSOS is aligned with Everbridge’s vision of international expansion into Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom and the rest of the world.  

Interested to learn more about the RapidSOS Partner Network? Read our full press release here.