COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY AND INFORMATION SERVICES - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Thursday, May 31, 2007, 1:45 p.m. - - - Bill No. 070379 - a resolution authorizing City Council Committee on Technology & Information Services to hold hearings to examine and evaluate the feasibility of upgrading and expanding the City's community emergency notification system, otherwise known as Reverse 9-1-1. COUNCILMEMBERS PRESENT: Brian J. O'Neill, Chair Frank DiCicco Blondell Reynolds-Brown Frank Rizzo Daniel J. Savage Marian B. Tasco - - - V A R A L L O Incorporated Litigation Support Specialists 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103 215.561.2220 215.567.2670 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 WITNESS MaryAnn E. Marrocolo..................... Deputy Managing Director, Emergency Mgmt. Frank Punzo, Deputy Commissioner......... 13 Communications, Public Property Ned Ingraham, Roam Secure................ 47 Senior V.P., Homeland Security Services Dennis Elwell, Verizon Business.......... 67 Director, Government and Education Solutions 3 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379
Good afternoon, everyone. The Committee on Technology & Information Services is now in session to hear testimony on Resolution No. 070379. Could the clerk read the title of the resolution. Bill No. 070379, a resolution 10 authorizing City Council Committee on Technology & Information Services to hold hearings to examine and evaluate the feasibility of upgrading and expanding the City's community emergency notification system, otherwise known as Reverse 9-1-1.
Thank you. I am Councilman Brian O'Neill, chair of the committee. I'd like to thank and recognize the members present: Councilman Frank Rizzo to my far left, Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds-Brown, Councilman Dan Savage, Councilwoman Marian Tasco to my 4 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 immediate right, and Councilman Frank DiCicco. For our first witness, from the City of Philadelphia MaryAnn E. Marrocolo and Frank Punzo -- although I know he's not on the list. (Witnesses come forward.)
Oh, we will. You want to be here for a resolution like this, which is good resolution that -- we're talking about positive things for the future.
That's a good way to start off my first time. I want to thank the members of the Committee on Technology & Information Services for holding a hearing to examine this issue and for allowing me the opportunity to testify. I will present to you information on establishing an 5 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 effective warning system for the City of Philadelphia.
MaryAnn you're going to have to state your name and title for the record.
Sure. I'm MaryAnn Marrocolo. I'm the Deputy Managing Director for Emergency Management.
Sorry. I will present to you information today on establishing an effective warning system for the City of Philadelphia based on research related to public warning. I also have copies of reports available that I'll leave with the Council if they want additional information. In addition, I will review the systems currently used by the City for emergency notification. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 emergencies necessitating evacuation demonstrate the need to quickly alert the public to impending danger and provide life-saving guidance on accidents that should be taken. Such warnings must be available to all those at risk, no matter where they are or what they are doing. Furthermore, such a system should be designed to deliver warnings for any event throughout the course of the event -- before, during, and after. This requires investment in a layered approach and system, not just a single technology to ensure messages reach the widest audience in the fastest time frame possible. A public warning includes two key components -- an alert and a message. Alert and messages may or may not be delivered using the same method. While some methods offer the ability to do both alerting and messaging, some do not. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 sirens to alert the public and to direct the public to a local radio or TV station to receive a corresponding message. This process for issuing a warning involves a three-pronged approach -- planning beforehand, public education, and testing and evaluation. This process is as important as the tools used to disseminate the warning message and include effectively collecting and analyzing the hazard data, having defined decision criteria for issuing a warning, framing the warning message, disseminating the warning, and establishing a method for ensuring the public has received this warning and is following the guidance issued. Within this layered system are two warning options -- mass notification and sending individually addressable message to only those at risk. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 several key factors -- who you are trying to reach, where they are, what they are doing, any special needs they may have, and the time of day. A mass warning is designed to reach every person in a geographic area regardless of whether or not they are at risk or not. These systems are usually not individually addressable and generally provide the same alert message to every recipient. The most basic systems will merely alert people that there is a problem and will generally not be able to provide details regarding the nature of the problem. More sophisticated mass notification systems can provide specific details. The next level of alert and warning involve sending individually addressable messages to only those at risk. A number of systems can provide such messages over the telephone; for example, Reverse 9-1-1. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 There are also systems that can reach both hard-wired telephones and cell phones. Some alerts and warnings can be delivered by fax. There are also systems available to send data messages to PDAs, pagers, or other mobile devices, and yet some alert systems allow for it to receive messages from special receivers. That's generally used for individuals that have a disability such as being deaf or hard-of-hearing or do not generally -- or may have language barriers, so you can transmit the messages, using one of these types of systems. It is important to note that many of the systems currently available will permit alerts and warnings to be sent over multiple devices, so you may be able to purchase one system and do all of the things that I just mentioned. /INFO SERVICES - RES. " We currently use RSAN to notify City officials and key partners of emergency incidents and events. " Based on our experience, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Counterterrorism Task force invested the Department of Homeland Security grant funding in RSAN as part of a region-wide interoperable notification system.
We do not currently use RSAN for mass notification of the public during an emergency event, though this is a service that can be purchased and can be integrated into our existing system. /INFO SERVICES - RES. " This is through the Streets Department, and this tool is designed to provide mass notification to the public and can be programmed to call specific areas based on zip codes or street boundaries or really any kind of geographic boundary. You can, for example, take a street -- say, Broad Street -- and call only all of the phone numbers on Broad Street. This contract provides for access to a limited number of lines all the time, but may be expanded when the system is used on a large scale. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 information. Beyond this, the system has applications that provide emergency warning. The Streets Department, who manages the system, is working with my office as well as the Fire Department and the Police Department and the Department of Public Property to identify situations in which the system may be most effective for this purpose. We are always look to expand our capability in the area of public warning and view this hearing as an opportunity to discuss options going forward. I hope this information is useful to your examination of the matter at hand. I want to reiterate the need for an investment in a layered system that goes beyond the purchase of a single technology. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 crisis. Once again, thank you for the opportunity to testify. Deputy Commissioner Frank Punzo and I welcome any questions that you might have on this topic.
The notification system, whether it's very simplistic or whether it's very advanced, is it preferable that the City or county -- in our case, we're both, so it's easier -- run it themselves or have someone else run it for them? Is it something -- you can answer that.
This is Frank Punzo, Deputy Commissioner of Communications for Public Property. I believe that there's two parts, Councilman, to that question -- or two answers to that question. Running the system, which would be the actual sending of the alerts and 14 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 getting the messages out, I think, absolutely has to be done by the county and by the city. Where the actual equipment resides, okay, is debatable. And having a combination of -- having something within the City and having something at a remote site that may not be impacted by an invent that occurs in the City would be preferable. So you can run the City -- you could run the system, I should say, from both in the City or externally, or we could do it totally from a remote site; in other words, we don't have to have the servers here in the City here to do, we don't have to have the hardware, but we could still operate the system via the Internet or via other connections.
We'd want to be in control of it. 15 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379
Absolutely. That's really key that the local responders be able to access the system and manage it.
Okay. Now, the genesis for this hearing today and for this resolution, obviously, is a tragedy in Virginia and trying to learn about -- more about what can or could be done. Not to cast any aspersions on what happened there 'cause, initially, they thought it was an isolated incident, and I'm sure that had a big bearing on the outcome. But we are a city that has a -- and a region that has probably more secondary, post-secondary institutions than anyplace in the world just about within the City or a very short distance outside. And I'm wondering how, for instance, with those institutions within our borders and also as you deal with regional issues under homeland 16 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 security, we would -- would we interact with or work with in any way, cooperate with, say, the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel, Temple -- I could go on with each of them -- LaSalle for -- or some recent graduates out in the audience and St. Joe's. And how would -- would we have some cooperative ways of helping them making sure that they're up to speed? Because I think that is the issue on a lot of people's minds, where you have these targets sitting -- sitting ducks when -- 'cause it's hazardous evacuations, it's security evacuations. But also there's the gunman issue. You have issues where there's children that are missing, issues where there might be an armed criminal on the loose that the government's aware of. But specifically just with universities -- and I know we have other institutions and our own government to talk about, but how, if 17 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 at all, are we dealing with that issue, as it's been brought to the forefront?
Well, I have spoken specifically to the University of Pennsylvania about what they're doing related to mass notification, and I'm meeting with Drexel next week to have a very similar conversation. My intent is to do that with all of the universities in the City. One of the things that is important is if we can communicate incident information to them before there is an event so that we can start to connect those dots sooner rather than later. Many of the universities' safety organizations have accounts on our internal RSAN system and regularly receive police pages, and so some of that is happening already.
I would like it to be more robust than it is now, 18 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 and that's what we are working on now.
Well, you took the word "robust" out of -- right out of my mouth. If Council, this mayor, the next mayor were interested in having the most robust system you could have, various technologies, some mix of voluntary and involuntary notification -- I assume your streets information is involuntary; I think we just notify people as we get their numbers. In other cases -- in other instances, we may want to only notify people that ask to be notified. In an office setting, you may not need every person in that office to be on a notice system because they're working so closely together. But if you were to describe in just laymen's terms what from the simplest layer, which, I assume, is something like we're doing now -- not 19 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 the simplest but more basic level to these enhanced levels that we're looking at hopefully, how would you describe the stairway from basic to enhanced/robust?
Sure. The most basic system would be an involuntary system where we could have the phone numbers of the households and be able to, in a geographic way, bound a notification zone and then push a message to them in a very rapid way. That would be our most basic function. After that, you would like a system that would allow for self-registration, where people could have multiple devices, including -- you know, like an e-mail BlackBerry or a text phone kind of e-mail address, and be able to push messages that way. Above that, you would want a system where, if people were on their cell phone and, say, it was at an Eagles game or at a Phillies game, on 20 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 the billboard, text in this message to get registered in our notification system, and then people could text in and automatically have that device registered to receive alerts, any kind of emergency alert. Above that, then you would want to be able to push general preparedness to individuals that may opt into that. So in addition to emergency alerting, which is important, you want to arm people with tools to actually be prepared in an emergency, and this would allow you to opt in to get that kind of message in. I think that's -- or maybe Frank could add something more to that.
Yeah, I think MaryAnn has covered most of it, and I think the key is to be able to not only capture our current citizens but those citizens who may enter the City on a daily basis to work here, who aren't normally Philadelphia residents that 21 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 are -- a normal Reverse 9-1-1, in the past, that's all that would have been covered; it would have been citizens who have phone lines in the City. But it would be giving them the ability to register both during an event, if you will, such as an Eagles game or something of that nature, as well as get the messages that they want to receive. I mean, they may, for instance, not want to receive messages relating to the colleges, but certainly someone like University of Pennsylvania and others, you know, would but they wouldn't want to receive necessarily messages that impacted South Philadelphia, for instance. So it would be giving them the option, since any text message would obviously be a cost to the individual receiving it, unless they received it on a pager, you know, that receives text messaging today. You'd want to give the citizen 22 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 that option so that they're not coming back and asking the City, "Well, you're sending me far too many messages. I'm getting too much information, and it's costing me cents per message," you 7 know, type of thing. 8 So I know that's getting down 9 into some of the detail, but that's a 10 concern that I would say we would look 11 at along with how do we get the most 12 people who are in this city on a 13 24-hour basis to get the message, not 14 just those who live here. 15
The cost of the system -- and I know very basic to very enhanced has the same spread in cost, is there an ability to tap into the money that's paid by phone users? And is there anything on the horizon to tap into cell phone users? since most of these notifications, I assume, would come over cell phones, whether it be data or voice or both. Is there some state 23 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 legislation that might be needed if we can't do it rights now?
As we understand it right now and looking at the 9-1-1 funding, which is that dollar that we get both on our land line now and on the cell phones, the land line dollar --
But I want to make sure -- the cell phone, since that is more operated by the State in terms of the funding and then the dollars that actually come to us. In other words, land lines, we get a dollar for every land line that's in the City.
With the cell phones, the State, through PEMA, 24 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 actually controls that, and we have to apply.
It's been determined that the consultants that we work with on a daily basis, that the land line dollars potentially could apply, but that the wireless dollar would not apply to a system like this.
There would have to be a change in state legislation to do that?
There would have to be a change in state legislation, yes, to do that.
Okay. And is -- I assume you're looking at this whole broad spectrum of possibilities to do it.
Do we have enough money to pay for it? If you went to the level that, I'm assuming, a mayor or Council as a whole would want, which would be the best system possible, considering the cost of not having the best system possible and the worst-case scenario.
The answer is: Yes, we would probably have the money to pay for it. Again, depending on enhancements and additions we're making to the 9-1-1 system normally and the mobile data terminals and policer cars, you know, there would probably be dollars left, so --
I just -- I think that's a great idea, but that 9-1-1 money, you talked about the cost of what a consumer would incur. Couldn't somehow we figure to make that 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 a free call to the provider, whether it's Sprint, whether it's Verizon, whether it's AT&T, that that would be included in that 9-1-1 fee, that that call to a person for an emergency would be a free transaction?
The answer is: I don't know that it could be taken out of the dollar just by us stating that it could be taken out of the dollar, but I think working with the cell carriers -- okay, again similar to a star fix or, you know, pound WIP or pound 610, you know, when cell callers call, you know, the radio stations. If the cell carrier would be interested in providing that as a free call to the user, then, yeah, I think absolutely it could be done. I think to diminish the dollar that we're receiving, you know, which 27 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 would be for 9-1-1, would probably be a last resort. I would more like to go to the carriers and ask whether they would transmit that call for free.
Yeah. We're not talking about a lot of money, and they could identify the source of that call, and that could be a free call. The other question that I had is about the systems that we have presently where City pagers and City cell phones -- which, by the way, from what I understand, are sporadic; some get it, some don't, so apparently, there needs to be an audit of what numbers are in there, numbers that change, because I've talked to a few people, and your switchboard -- MaryAnn, I think, is constantly sending us helpful information, but some of us get it and some of us don't. So I think that maybe needs to be looked at. 28 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 My question is: On the systems that we have to, how do you deal with the privacy issue? How does a person that has an unlisted number get the information? How do you deal with the thoroughness of the communication based on people that have private numbers, people that don't? Is it random? I mean, I can't imagine it just dials every number combination to deliver the message.
Uh, MaryAnn? I mean I could answer from the Roam Secure system that we're using today. It's self-registering, so you, as an individual, would have to register on the system with the numbers that you wanted to receive the message on. So if you wanted to receive it on your cell phone or on your pager, you would register those numbers within the system. And by doing that, you 29 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 take away the whole privacy issue because you've asked to receive those messages.
I'm talking about the messages we get on like recycling.
The Streets Department. I mean, how do you manage the thoroughness of that?
The basic Swift Reach system, I know, has every house tagged with a phone number; how that happens, I don't know, but I will find out for you. As for above and beyond the basic house phone line, that would have to be self-registration, especially when it comes to cell phones and other kind of text PDA devices. People would have to opt into that because of the issue the free call and the fact that, I believe, cell phone numbers are not 30 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 listed. But for the Swift Reach system, I'll find out how that happens and will let you know.
I'm curious to see how a person with an unlisted phone number would be included in the process.
Is there any way of employing the WiFi network that we'll have up and running pretty soon -- I know we're getting near the end of the buildout, the initial test area -- and using this as well?
I think, Councilman, where the WiFi network would come in into play is where you generate the message from because you would need access typically with the 31 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 systems to the Internet to create the message.
So the WiFi would come into play if you're out -- such as MaryAnn or myself out on the street, in an emergency event, you need to create the message and send it out. That's where the WiFi would come into play. It would give you the access to the Internet to be able to create it and then generate the start of the message. After that, then the systems would take over and actually start to broadcast.
And in some instances -- and I know you and I had a little bit of a discussion, Mr. Punzo -- what you have is Internet protocol to be able to get messages out in the case of a real bad disaster where your lines are down, your towers are affected, you know, a real 9-1-1 kind of things, so you -- the Internet 32 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 has to be a piece of this somewhere?
And I guess a wireless Internet is, with the data that you're using and things, is part of that?
And because it's such -- they're short messages typically; you're not sending a very long messages.
At least in the text world, that's very simply sent, you know, over the Internet. And even when a lot of systems are down, that tends to get through before something else.
In something like an Amber Alert that we've become familiar with, can this work with that so that there would be something coming directly to people 33 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 that they can read or see?
The Amber Alert today -- some of us receive that Amber Alert information today when it is generated.
I believe also when we had the discussion, you asked me the question, Could you send pictures? And I wasn't sure at that time, and the answer is yes, you can.
The Center City District actually for the young woman who had been shot and killed out by the hospital, it actually sent the mugshots out to some of their subscribers after that had happened.
Wow. So there really are large capabilities for this type of thing.
I've always been a believer, having worked with the League of Cities at a state and national level that most of what's being done, or could be done, is already being done, and all we have to do is find out the best practices, go see them and talk to them about what they, you know, after they kick the tires, what they would have done differently, and I think you save a lot of money and also learn a whole time at someone else's expense. Do we know the jurisdictions particularly on a size -- from a size standpoint that are big enough to be relevant in comparison that are sort of leading, or are we one of leaders as we're looking into this?
I think that jurisdictionally, the areas that I'm familiar with mostly are the Washington, D.C./Arlington area, something of the size that we would be 35 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 using.
Certainly there are a lot of smaller counties. Our five-county area surrounding is using our current system, as MaryAnn had mentioned.
Well, that's a good follow-up. I would imagine the Washington area -- I mean, from a homeland security funding standpoint, I know enough from the National League of Cities that they're top dog and they should be, and New York City is right behind, but we're pretty big too.
Especially when we're operating regionally. Is there a chance to get additional homeland security funding 36 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 for what you're talking about on a regional basis, some of this enhanced level of Reverse 9-1-1?
Yes, I think there is an opportunity, and I know that the other four county emergency managers are interested in doing a regional system for citizen warning so that we can integrate across their boundaries. So whatever we would do as a city, I would strongly encourage that we try do it as a region because emergencies, you know, they don't stop at the Bucks County line, they don't stop at the Montco line.
And don't we get a better -- or move higher up in the protocol chain of eligibility, the more we regionalize our request for homeland secured rather than being siloed at our borders?
Within the five-county Pennsylvania area, on our 37 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 homeland security grant application, we don't get the extra points for that.
Where we would get the extra point is if, say, we partnered with New Jersey across the border or with Delaware. You get points for partnering with other states and other urban areas.
So if we were try to do something jointly Pittsburgh, then we would get extra points on our application.
Is South Jersey or northern Delaware interested in that kind of thing with us?
They are, and we have an eleven-county, three-state Delaware Valley Regional working group 38 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 that deals with emergency management issues. And citizen warning is something where it makes sense to be regional. It's like many things that we do in emergency response. This area floats to the top as being an area where we want to be integrated and connected so that as we start to the warn citizens in Philadelphia, the Bucks County residents get tickled about our warnings, and the Bucks County emergency manager also gets that message.
Okay. When do you think we will have made a decision which way we're going and how far we're going with this -- these additional levels of Reverse 9-1-1 that we could be doing? Are we talking about months or years? I would rather just keep it in --
Well, I would hope months. 39 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379
I think that, as with anything, we want to do our due diligence. As you mentioned, since the Virginia Tech situation, many, many more people have come out of the woodwork, so to speak, and have, you know, come to us and have said, Oh, we have this system, we have that system. So we're very familiar with two of systems that we have seen and you'll hear testimony on today.
But there are others out there, and I think we need to do our due diligence to get it operational. I think it -- depending on whether we choose a system that we already have or something new would determine the actual implementation time frame. 40 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379
I would just like to add that this hearing is very timely because we weren't really in a position to talk about citizen warning until about a week ago. We had three separate Rome Secure Alert Networks inside the City that we consolidated last week, and that's a key step in getting us to a point where we can have a conversation about citizen warning. Internally, inside City government, we were very fragmented in the way we were delivering incident information across agencies and to our key partners. And with our consolidation, we're now positioned to have a very coordinated and cohesive effort inside government, which is the first step in being able to deliver a coordinated message outside of 41 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 government. So we're actually very well positioned now to really move on this pretty quickly.
If the two of you could let me know as we get some meat on the bone further down the line on this, I would appreciate the opportunity to have a briefing session with the committee. It could be across the hall in the Council caucus room or just about anyplace in the building. I don't know if we need to hold another hearing on it; we can make that determination as a committee.
Thank you. Good afternoon. Just as a point of information in response to Chairman O'Neill's 42 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 question regarding how soon we may see progress in this initiative. You may already know that -- I know that the -- there are like 88 institutions actually in this region, and they actually have a coalition of institutional reps that meet on a regular basis around issues facing them as a community. So it's a lot of leg work to go door to door with the number of higher-ed institutions, and you may want to reach to that coalition of institutional reps who meet on a regular basis around different issues facing the higher-ed community in an effort to move along this initiative.
That's a great idea, Councilwoman. And I think MaryAnn mentioned it best in her testimony -- the getting the notice out, whether it be through the coalition to the universities or to the citizens is one of the key components and also one of the ones that takes a 43 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 lot of planning, 'cause we don't want to miss people, bottom line. We want to capture them all if we're going to do this correctly.
I'm one for not reinventing the wheel. I know that the cell phone providers like Verizon and, you know, the whole list have the ability to group-call. Why couldn't we work with them if we manage it, if there were an emergency, that they dot group call for us?
No, no, I'm talking about the -- whether it's a text message, that when they want to sell you something, they know how to send to it 15,000 subscribers on your 44 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 cell phone. Why not keep our costs down. I'm sure it would be a great public relations effort for all of us together to be able to say, Here's the message, we communicate it in a secure way to them, mand then they retransmit it for us. Their centers are 24/7.
And so I think that we should at least talk to them to get their input of working with us, that they are a part of this process.
I don't see any reason, again, through our investigation that we can't talk to them, and I think both the combination of sending out the messages, as you've said, and your recent question as well as the ones where if it were to be sent by a system, can they accept it as a free call, you know, as it goes out. So I think both, you know, can certainly be investigated with the 45 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 carriers.
Our list of things that I think we should consider. Fortunately, we're not in a region where we get hit with tremendous severe weather, but we all recently looked back about a tornado that they had pretty much a 30-minute warning that it was heading in a particular direction. So I think significant weather should also be put on the list to notify.
And that's the advantage of any of the citizen-warning systems, Councilman: You can notify them of any condition, okay? Certainly severe weather, whether it be hurricanes or whether it's coming up from the Jersey coast, et cetera, you know, can certainly be put out there. That's the advantage of having it in control it is, we determine what messages actually go out to the citizens so that you don't create a 46 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 panic or you don't create mass evacuation when it's not necessary.
Well, you remember -- and I'll only take 30 more seconds -- the fact that we all met about the threats, the bomb threats, et cetera, where we have a process in place now that we can get ownership of a number that we capture almost immediately, and that process works really well, where the Police Department communicates to the cell phone providers.
And there's a past number and, you know, it's a very secure process, and from what I understand from police radio, it's worked very, very well.
It has. It's cut down obviously now that we're also Phase 1- and Phase 2-compliant, where we not only get the cell phone number but the actual owner and address or 47 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 location where they're calling from, it's cut down tremendously on that because people know you can call them back and track them down. So whether it's a real bomb threat or whether it's something that's just a crank call, which was very high, you know, coming through the 9-1-1 center. You know, it's been improved tremendously.
If there are no more questions of these witnesses, I'd like to call our next witness. From Roam Secure, Mr. Ned Ingraham. (Witnesses come forward.)
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Councilmembers. My name is Ned Ingraham. I'm the Senior Vice President of Homeland Security Services with Roam Secure. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 with you this afternoon. Prior to joining Roam Secure about months ago, I served for four 5 years as the Chief Information Officer 6 for the District of Columbia Emergency 7 Management Agency, so I have seen this 8 problem from both sides. And with that 9 in mind, I'd like to go through our 10 testimony. 11 I won't read verbatim the 12 testimony that we've provided you, but 13 there are a couple of points that I'd 14 like to bring up. 15 RSAN is the industry leader in 16 text messaging, with some 115 17 installations around the country, 18 including federal, the White House, the House of Representatives, Department of State, among others; state and local governments, airports, colleges and universities, and private industry. We have implementations in all of these sites. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 six or seven years. We have recently incorporated the Roam Secure information exchange into our product. A few years back, the Department of Homeland Security put forth an effort to come up with a national framework for the sharing of emergency information so that jurisdictions and entities within jurisdictions can freely share information back and forth. While that project is still on the drawing board, Roam Secure has instituted it, and it's a part of the Roam Secure package that you folks have working here in the City of Philadelphia. Our mission is to deliver high-speed, high-volume text-messaging combined with voice-messaging where appropriate. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 growing at about 300 percent annually. The product provides an easy-to-use Web-based interface which allows emergency management personnel, city officials, to quickly and easily send messages either to the city at-large or select groups within the city. Philadelphia currently operates three different Roam Secure types of systems. As Ms. Marrocolo said, they've all been combined into a entity, but there are three different uses of the system. There is emergency management, obviously at the forefront; there is continuity of operations, allowing the government to keep running when things turn for the worst; and then there is our active system, which is a volunteer management system used by the Health Department in organizing the Medical Reserve Corps. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 out to include a citizens warning system. As I'm sure you know, the Emergency Preparedness Review Committee report prepared by James Lee Witt & Associates recommended that Philadelphia the RSAN network that currently exists to include citizens warning, and we are prepared to do that on very short notice. Going back to the information exchange for just a moment, it provides an interoperability with other systems and sources of information locally, regionally, and nationally. So, for example, when the question arose about being able to communicate back and forth with the colleges and universities, not only can you do that within your boundaries, but you can do it with other colleges and universities anywhere around the country through the information exchange. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 We are currently working with the University Consortium in the District of Columbia to institute Roam Secure systems at each individual university to cover not only their student population, their faculty, their staff, but alumni and parents as well. The -- what RSIX does, the Roam Security Information Exchange, is to allow a wide variety of options for the citizen subscriber or for internal users. This allows us to increase situational awareness. It provides information for those who need to know it when they need to know it, and it provides it almost instantaneously. It facilitates interoperability and collaboration, so you have resource-sharing with the surrounding jurisdictions. /INFO SERVICES - RES.
070379 Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties, and across the river in Gloucester County, where they do have a citizens warning system in place. RSIX allows you to automatically gather and distribute routine information. So in some cases where you might have a weather message, you can select and filter those weather messages and pass them through instantaneously without any intervention, or it can be moderated, but this allows you to send information such as a tornado warning that comes through at the last minute very quickly. You get the message in, it goes out immediately; it requires no 19 manual intervention. But, again, that's a city choice. You can intervene, you can set it up and read it and make sure it's right, or you can trust the National Weather Service and send it right on through. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 in other areas, minutes counts. RSAN provides citizens with a trusted source of information. And what we found in our citizen warning systems around the country is that people learn to trust this source of information. They may get CNN Headline News on their phone, and it might be a catastrophic event coming their way, or it might be that Britney Spears got arrested again; they really know what the information is about. But information coming from Roam Secure systems, which are tagged and labeled as "City of Philadelphia OEM," or whatever you wish to have it tagged as, those things are heated, they're paid attention to. The system is easy enough to allow alert generation in a matter of minutes or seconds, and reduces the risk of error. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 you could have the option, but you can send it on through without having to rekey it and perhaps putting the wrong time in, the wrong area, and so it reduces errors in the generation of messages, And it also allows for focused and directed messaging to impacted citizens and areas, so you can get down to the block area if you wish, you can identify a particular street to send to, and all of this is possible using RSAN with RSIX. There are third-party interfaces which allow multiple applications to be launched simultaneously. So, for example, we work with the crisis information management systems of many jurisdictions, so that when a message is entered, that information is also fed in through the management system. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 was sent out. We work with many voice dialing systems, where a message entered into Roam Secure can be translated in text-to-speech, or it can be prerecorded and that prerecording identification entered into the Roam Secure message and passed to the voice dialing system. All of this is designed to provide a single tool that meets the emergency manager's need in communicating quickly and effectively with both the internal staff and with the public. Let's talk a little bit about advantages of text-based notification. Now, as the CIO in DC, I purchased a number of different notification systems. I purchased a text system and I purchased a voice system. We also had a website, and we had the emergency alert system. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 primary source of passing information along, and there were a number of reasons why. It was the most reliable, cost-effective, and efficient means of mass notification in time of crisis. Voice network, whether it's land line or cellular, are not designed to carry traffic to a hundred percent of the devices out there. And as we've seen at 9/11 and as we've seen in the London bombings, the voice networks get saturated by the everyday person trying to make a call, trying to find out what's happened with their loved ones or trying to determine the extent of the situation, and the voice systems get choked. In the case of Katrina, they were largely demolished and just disappeared. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 messaging remained available or was restored to most areas of the city within hours.
5 A number of urban search-and- 6 rescue teams employing Roam Secure as 7 their communication system were 8 deployed to Louisiana, and they were 9 the (indiscernible) teams that were 10 consistently getting messaging back and 11 forth to their management folks to the 12 point where others (indiscernible) 13 teams were coming to them and asking 14 them to facilitate communications back 15 to their home base. 16 What we found with voice 17 notification is that there's a high 18 cost of ownership and/or operation. 19 The City of Orlando, as you may recall, 20 went through a period a few years back 21 where there were five hurricanes that 22 came through in a very short period of 23 time. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 events, they got a bill for $175,000 that's pretty pricy when you haven't budgeted for it in advance. The other thing we've found with voice-dialing systems -- or I found in DC was that time is an issue. We ran some tests under ideal conditions, sending out emergency messages to 35,000 land lines, and it took minutes. When you do the math, 12 that's a long time to notify the 13 population of an impending or existing 14 disaster. 15 What I did find was that a 16 voice-dialing system was useful for 17 small events and small-scale events and 18 for small-scale notifications. 19 Some of the benefits of RSAN, 20 and one of the reasons why we would 21 like to see the City continue the use 22 of RSAN to the citizens is that it's 23 already in use. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 response to crises is that people tend to use what they know, they use the tools that they have at hand, the tools they use every day; they do not use things that they're not familiar with. One of the sheriffs in Louisiana was interviewed on television and was complaining that all of his communication infrastructure was destroyed -- the land lines were down, the cell towers were down and his radio towers were down, and he had no way to communicate. " 21 Now, what this points to is 22 that if you don't use the system on a 23 regular basis, you're going to have 24 trouble operating it at a time of crisis. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 people use Roam Secure on a daily basis to communicate at least internally; and, therefore, when a crisis occurs, it's very familiar, and they use it very quickly to communicate both internally and externally. Citizens who register on the system can store multiple devices, and they can be voice devices, and it's independent of carrier or service provider. It can be an ISP, it can be any wireless carrier. The system allows for multi- lingual support. Messages can be sent out in any language that you can type into a computer. " and the answer was, of course, no. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 can use any language that's out there. Rapid enrollment is a key feature of Roam Secure that we think would greatly benefit the City. Ms. Marrocolo talked about putting up something on the Jumbotron at an Eagles game or Phillies game that said if you want text alerts, type in this short code, this five- or six-digit code. And it could be customized so that it's identifiable as Philadelphia's, or it can be something that we provide for you on a more random basis. But that instantaneously registers people in the system. This is also useful -- we have an installation out in Vail, Colorado, where they advertise it in the airport to incoming skiers so that if you want to know what the conditions are or what the weather's going to be like, you type in this five-digit code. When you leave, you type in the five-digit code and say quit, and you're out. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 allows for tourists and commuters, and anyone, in fact, to register on the system very quickly. The system, of course, is interoperable with the City's existing internal system. It is interoperable with any other citizens warning system in the surrounding area such as the one in Gloucester. It can interface with other types of messaging systems.
If you have an independent voice-messaging system, it can interface with that. It can interface with the emergency alert system and with XM radio -- we send messages to XM radio for retransmission. Reliability. No RSAN system has ever failed to meet the expectations of its owner. We have a one hundred percent retention rate over our seven years of existence. And some of these folks, as you can imagine, are pretty picky. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 Office of the President takes it very seriously. And Roam Secure has vast experience in implementing and rolling out these types of systems, both internal and through the citizenry. We can include special-needs population. And as was mentioned in earlier testimony, we can do remote sending. You don't need to be signature at a terminal to initiate an RSAN message; you just need to have any sort of text-capable device in hand. You can be at your home, you can be out at the Phillies game; you can be anywhere and generate these messages. So we've been doing this for quite some time, we've been doing it to great effect. We have a happy customer base; we take customer service very seriously. And we look forward to doing some more business with the City, perhaps.
65 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 Councilwoman Reynolds-Brown?
You mentioned -- thank you for your testimony. Two things. One, we would like to meet the gentlemen on each sides of you.
And you mentioned a number of cities where you have a track record, so unless I missed it, what's the total number of customers by city that you have?
There's the Washington, DC area, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay area, the Orange County Orlando area, and the New Orleans area, New Orleans, Louisiana.
66 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 Okay. And just for my own understanding: Of the scope of the world you work in, who would be considered a competitor?
There are a number of competitors. There is Send Word Now, there is Warn. A lot of competitors do both voice and text. And in evaluating the system -- and let me step aside from my role as RSAN. In evaluating them from the District of Columbia's perspective, the folks who tried to do both didn't do either very well.
And it struck me as I was lucking at literally dozens of different competitors that the best solution was to select independently and work to interface the two.
You're welcome. 67 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 The gentleman to my left is Marco Muto, and Marco is based here in Philadelphia. He lives here and has been working with the city for a year or so. He is largely responsible for the coordination and consolidation effort that has gone on. To my right is Joseph Rafferty. Joe is the Senior Vice President of Business Development.
Thank you for your testimony. It was very thorough and informative.
Okay. Our next panel. Verizon Business. Dennis Elwell. (Witness comes forward.)
My name is Dennis 68 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 Elwell.
I'm with Verizon Business. I'm the Director of Government and Education Solutions. Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to address the members of the Committee on Technology and Information Services. In particular, we appreciate the opportunity for Verizon to come in and share information as you all evaluate the feasibility of upgrading and expanding the City's emergency notification system, otherwise, as you're referring to it, as a Reverse 9-1-1. I have submitted written testimony.
(Inaudible) ... not to any economy that may have that name.
Thank you. 69 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 I have submitted written testimony, which you have, but in an effort to be concise, I'm just going to pull specific information out to share with you all.
Okay. Thank you. As I mentioned, I'm the Director of Government and Education Solutions in Verizon Business. In that role, I've had the opportunity to work nationally with states, local governments, K-12, and institutions of higher education on the implementation of complex solutions such as the notification services that we're addressing today. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 unplanned events, whether natural or man-made or technology-based, to maintain the safety of citizens, employees, students, to keep a city operating and running effectively, and to provide mission-critical information to, again, citizens, partners, agencies, the media, and, eventually and ultimately, the public. One of the principal challenges has been how to instantly communicate critical information both internally and externally to parties in a coordinated, consistent, and auditable fashion. In addition, maintaining the public's trust and confidence is uppermost in importance to the citizenry. Notifying citizens of critical events and with major public messages can provide citizens the information they need to respond appropriately and to protect their families, their neighbors, and their friends. /INFO SERVICES - RES. " I'll also refer to it in our branding strategy, which is -- it's known in the marketplace as the Verizon Notification Service, or VNS. I will avoid the use of the term "Reverse 9-1-1" so as not to -- to avoid any confusion with the traditional 9-1-1 services, the E 9-1-1 services that we provide to many cities and municipalities, including the City of Philadelphia. As I mentioned, I am privileged to have the opportunity to work with many cities, counties, and states across the nation to better prepare and respond to uncertain events. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 preparedness, disaster cover, and contingency planning. The first step Verizon Business has participated in with our government client base is to effectively identify risks and risks of all type across the city, planed and unplanned, and with those risks, then identify risk-mitigation strategies, plans, what to do in the event of an emergency. And, finally, much as the City Council was conducting today, the recognition that tools and systems play an important role in the total picture for reaction response to first responders and to its citizens. The Verizon Notification Service should be viewed in this context as one of several tools that the City of Philadelphia has at its disposal to accomplish its goals of notification and protection of its citizens. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 In addition to the due diligence that the committee is providing today, we also recommend the expanded use of geographic information systems and tools, capacity-planning tools, network-resiliency strategies. And all of these are integrated capabilities that Verizon Business can use and better support the City of Philadelphia. We've heard a couple of terrific things today, and I'll just touch on one which I think is perhaps the most important in a communications infrastructure. For the City of Philadelphia, we recommend a layered and multi-media approach for notification to its government employees and the citizens. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 industry. This same concept holds true in communicating with citizens and government organizations. No one single technology will reach every citizen or employee quickly; but, rather, a communications program made up of multiple levels and multiple communications technologies will vastly increase the likelihood that citizens and employees will get messages quickly and be able to respond appropriately. Let me give you a couple of examples. A traditional reverse 9-1-1- system -- its targets are land line customers, it's an outbound dialing solution. And it might be fine to connect to some people at home or local businesses, but it creates gaps almost instantly. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 in this sort of a system. Local radio and TV, another medium.
It's great to connect to local listeners, but candidly, those folks who are not tuned in or are not in front of the set or the radio will be left out. Even multi-media notification services like Verizon's Notification Service is terrific to contact people on land line, cell phone, e-mail, text, pager, and fax subscribers, but there may be a small subset of nonsubscribers that could be left out. And, finally, it's not infrequently that folks will post messages on websites or post 800 numbers or text-messaging-only systems, and these are terrific for Internet subscribers, text-messaging users, and e-mail users. But if someone is unplugged or mobile, they will miss that message. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 about first responders having difficulty in communications across agencies, communities, events, and when emergencies do occur. Complex systems, funding structures, and services can lead to communications issues among first responders. We certainly saw this in 9/11 and in some other events that have been noted today. Recently, the Government Accounting Office published a report on the progress of interoperability programs, and it is still apparent that much work needs to be done to improve communications for the first responders. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 diverse groups of employees, first responders, citizens, businesses, students, universities, and other public entities and institutions remains an integral part of every city's communications program. Let me just touch on another point which I think bears some importance to the committee. Probably it's of some importance to note that we as a nation, and as a major urban center, the City of Philadelphia, knows that cell phones and other mobile devices have been increasing exponentially over the past several yours. Numerous studies have documented this trend. But what is interesting is how citizens are now using their cell phones for emergencies and other communications and some of the features that are coming today and into the future. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 that I'd like to just quote from the Pew Internet Project; it was a research study that was done. A couple of interesting statistics. Fully 74 percent of Americans who own mobile phones say that they have either used their handheld device in an emergency or received help during an emergency. When it comes to features that Americans wants most to add to their cell phones, they have a high desire for mapping and other directional tools to help them in their daily lives. A third of cell phone owners already use text-messaging on their phones, and another 13 percent would like to add that capacity. Twenty four percent of cell phone-using adults report interestingly that they often feel that they have to answer a phone, even if it involves interrupting a meeting or a meal. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 study is that Americans' usage and dependency on cell phones and mobile devices have shifted, and it truly has become a more permanent appliance in our daily lives. If I might, let me touch on some of the requirements of a -- that are suitable for a notification system for the City of Philadelphia. Post-9/11 and post-Virginia Tech, the market for notification services has many new entrants and a wide range of products and services and capabilities. It's no doubt challenging for the City to select the optimal solution for your government. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 similar emergencies, and to contact these residents via a telephone with a recorded message that concisely describes what the emergency is and the appropriate actions that one should take. Additionally, the City is seeking a solution which can send recorded voice messages delivered via text to wireless receivers, including digital pagers in any time of an emergency. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 operations, even crime prevention, wanted-person alerts, neighborhood emergencies, and specific community or even homeland security notification.
Verizon Business's notification service can support all of these aforementioned requirements for the City. In an effort to more clearly frame the discussion, I'd like to touch on a couple of things that we think are important in an emergency communication system for a city the size of Philadelphia. The Verizon Business Notification Service Network has seven years of proven performance, delivering reliable performance through a number of major events, including September 11th, major power outages that have gripped the country, and other major weather-related events. Proven availability. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 availability and delivery performance as a part of every agreement that we have with every customer. Granular administration. An easy-to-use suite of tools which provides a high degree of flexible administration to address some of the circumstances that we talked about today. A Web-based tool which would enable the staff to easily create teams that administer recipients across a variety of profiles and preferred methods of communications. The application that we support is flexible and intuitive and easy to learn. Applications integration. We touched on this a little bit earlier. Any service, including the Verizon notification service, can connect to the applications that are already in place in schools and the City agencies through the use of standard application programming interfaces. These are the connections back into the software. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 This allows existing government data bases, telephone data bases, even billing systems, to easily integrate into this service. Verizon has a patented API, or application program interface, as a part of its solution. We've also touched on the need for the ultimate in security. All of the data, as a part of the Verizon Notification Service, is stored, using state-of-the-art encryption as well as complying with a number of information security and privacy standards. While some competitors struggle to accommodate a few thousand messages, last year, the Verizon Business platform supported a message volume of more than 19 million messages a month. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 to scale up for their growing needs. We're very proud of this track record and its proven performance, and we're able to sustain it with every new customer. In summary, let me touch on what I believe are a couple of important points in terms of capabilities. We've talked about the need to have an intuitive interface, a flexible way to initiate messaging. The Verizon system provides this. The options to customize messages and the recipient message. The idea that you would allow a recipient, upon receiving a message, to have the ability to bridge their voice line into a conference bridge or into an IVR to give them added capabilities. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 require some level of authentication. The ability to allow to hear a message multiple times in case, you know, they're not able to hear it where they might be. To turn off prompts of a message to allow them to get right to the message itself. And then to be able to mark a message as urgent and forward it onto others. Let me touch on a number of other capabilities which we think are table stakes. Text-to-speech conversion options. The ability to have prerecorded or impromptu recorded messages to be able to play. The ability to have professionally recorded messages on standby. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 extensions that the City may have. Customized message flows, such as leaving a different message on an answering maching or a different message on a -- for somebody who's been previously notified. The criticality to support multiple languages. Certainly, English -- even the United Kingdom English is an option. But we also support Spanish, Italian and, other 13 languages. 14 Some features that we think 15 are also important.
The system manages 16 recipients in groups because not every 17 emergency needs the same recipient 18 group, and most messages need to be 19 customized as a part of this. 20 The ability to make an 21 attachment on an e-mail that's sent as a part of a notification. This allows the attachment of further information, text, mapping -- whatever that might be. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 The ability to call multiple numbers or contact -- or have multiple contacts within the system provides that added layer of coverage that everyone needs. Let me touch on the need for redundancy in a service. The City should absolutely consider these sorts of services essential, and they need to be redundant. They may even want to consider having a managed service outside the immediate boundaries of the City itself to guard against the congestion, which is likely to happen in the event of an emergency. Let me touch on capacity as I close out today. With the City, you know, being the size of Philadelphia, it is critical that you have capacity, you know, to be able to handle important messages. /INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 e-mails per hour. 99 percent. 9 percent of all of our messages. I think it's important that I summarize with just a couple of statistics. Ten percent of the Fortune 1,000 use the Verizon system. Six of the ten largest banks in the United States use our system. Five of the eight top airlines use our systems. S. utilities and more than 17 government agencies, including the 18 California Department of Health, 19 Southern California Edison and Alliant 20 Energy, and Oklahoma Gas, just to name 21 a few utilities or municipalities. 22 Thank you very much, sir. 23
I 24 appreciate your testimony. 25 I just want to mention that 89 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 each of my Council colleagues, whether they are on the committee or not, have this testimony piped into their offices, so I assume if they're in the building, they're hearing it or having staff hear it. I didn't want you to think it's just been reduced to one out of seventeen listening to this. Just a couple of quick questions. One, you were talking about the recommendation for multi-layered or multi-tiered systems or methodologies to do this. You named about all I could think of, but you mentioned, as I would agree, there's always going to be someone who isn't covered by any of those. What do you do with that person that doesn't have the TV on or doesn't have the radio on or doesn't have a cell phone or may not have a land line phone? I don't know. There was a 90 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 small group you were kind of reducing the universe to, but I didn't know if you had a recommendation for how to go after that.
I think, in all candor, there are some people that will be uncovered, no matter what the medium is.
I thought maybe we could go back to the siren or something, at least that they know something's going on and they have to ask their neighbors if they were aware. It would be a fairly small universe, but I --
I think that's ultimately the answer. Despite the thoroughness of a multilayered approach, it may ultimately come down to word of mouth or the human contact to make sure that the absolute maximum 91 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 number of people are covered and alerted.
Okay. The other question I had is, again, for clarification. You mentioned redundancies and highly recommended them, but redundancies are different in different situations. The term is used even in the technology area. What were you talking about in terms of redundancy?
The redundancy I was referring to is that the Verizon solution has two data centers fully backed up and geographically dispersed in order to provide the notification. So there's no single point of failure anywhere within our network, our data centers, the calling systems that are used, the e-mail servers that are used, so it's a fully redundant (indiscernible) system.
So if, 92 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 for instance, the one in Philadelphia was, for whatever reason, became non-operational, the one outside Philadelphia, assuming that's where the other one would be, would pick up for it?
I'm just trying to get the -- sort of the layman's end of this.
The easiest way to describe that is that we would have two centers separated by hundreds of miles, and we have what we call a "hot standby" or a "failover." If one goes offline, the other one automatically picks up.
So all of the recipient information is backed up and duplicated.
All of the facilities coming into these centers 93 5/31/07 - TECH./INFO SERVICES - RES. 070379 are both on resilient rings and are redundant. So you have really a very strong level of resiliency and redundancy built in throughout the service.
Okay. Thank you. And I thank everybody who came today. This is the end of the hearing today. And good luck moving forward.
Both the City and the different vendors that are trying to become a part of it or stay part of it or become a larger part of it. Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Councilman. (Proceedings end at 2:35 p.m.) * * * 94 C E R T I F I C A T E I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings of the City of Philadelphia Council Committee on Technology & Information Services are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me on Thursday, May 31, 2007, and that this is a true and correct statement of same. __________________________________ JOSEPHINE CARDILLO Registered Professional Reporter (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)