Business Challenges

In public safety, your responsibilities are numerous, complex and critical to the welfare of the community you serve. Some of your greatest challenges, like floods, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, chemical spills, train derailments, industrial mishaps — whatever the emergency — may strike with little or no warning. Disasters often occur suddenly — such as in the middle of the night — and traditional warning systems alone cannot notify potential victims rapidly enough to be effective.

The Qwest Solution

The Qwest Emergency Preparedness Network (EPN) is a rapid and broad reaching telephone emergency notification service. EPN is the latest advancement by Qwest in a potentially life-saving public safety tool. EPN provides emergency notification by proactively placing telephone calls to inform citizens of impending danger. The calls are placed on behalf of the appropriate public safety authority.

In the event of a disaster, an authorized public safety official may request that Qwest deploy EPN. Within minutes, potentially thousands of calls simultaneously reach the affected community to deliver warnings and critical safety instructions.

Qwest EPN employs a strictly controlled database of geographically coded subscriber telephone numbers and addresses, including non-published and unlisted numbers. When emergencies arise, Qwest EPN identifies those telephone numbers within the specified geographic emergency area designated by the appropriate public safety official.

Then, based on a 30-second message length, up to 2,000 emergency outbound messages per minute may be initiated automatically and warnings, notifications, or safety information is directly delivered. A choice may also be made to have Qwest EPN leave a message where an answering machine picks up. The targeted message is sent to only those you feel need to be alerted. Fully administered by Qwest, EPN requires no forklift upgrades or dedicated on-site phone lines, making this notification system as mobile as the emergency at hand.

Funding for EPN programs may come from many different sources, such as federal and state grants, state and local public safety budgets, telephone surcharges, or corporate sponsorship. Many corporations have an interest in working with public safety to support EPN; particularly companies that store, use, or produce materials that are potentially toxic or hazardous.

Benefits

EPN adds a new dimension to public safety, providing you with a state-of-the-art notification tool; an important instrument to alert your community of potential dangers. The service can be especially vital at times — in the middle of the night — when most people are not able to hear and heed traditional warnings such as broadcasts on radio or television.

Qwest EPN offers a variety or significant benefits including:

• High-volume, automated outbound calling: up to 2,000 telephone numbers per minute may be called by the Qwest EPN service
• Complete, timely and accurate database, including non-published and unlisted numbers, updated daily
• No forklift upgrades or dedicated on-site phone lines, making this notification system as mobile as the emergency at hand
• Dynamic, real-time creation of Event boundaries based on specific addresses or intersections
• Preplanned event boundary maintenance to further shorten the time for calls to be initiated
• Static call lists to alert first responders and community leaders
• Real-time progress reports delivered to your agency via fax or e-mail
• Service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

The Qwest Advantage

Qwest has long been committed to advancing the speed of public safety and delivering the most advanced and reliable tools to public safety. We created the E-9-1-1 emergency system for communities through the states of AZ, CO, IA, ID, MN, MT, ND, NE, NM, OR, SD, UT, WA and WY. Since deploying E-9-1-1, Qwest has worked to continually improve and advance public safety communications.

Our goal is to provide public safely agencies with the tools they need to help mitigate the devastating effects emergency events may have on their communities.

For additional information, please contact your Qwest representative or authorized agent.