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RSSCentralSquare Acquires Tellus
CentralSquare, a provider of public-safety and administration software in North America, already works with 5,000 public-safety agencies. To accelerate the building of a single, virtual 9-1-1 dispatch system, current CentralSquare clients will immediately receive complimentary access to real-time situational awareness across jurisdictions.
An estimated 240 million calls are made to 9-1-1 across America each year. The calls come in to more than 8,900 different primary and secondary dispatch centers. These dispatch centers use multiple types of software systems, preventing dispatchers from easily identifying, deploying and coordinating emergency response across jurisdictions. This results in longer responses to life-threatening emergencies. This also leads to coordination challenges during natural disasters where dozens of police, fire and EMS services need to work collectively to prevent damage to life and property.
“CentralSquare already provides the broadest, smartest and most unified technology platform for nearly 5,000 public-safety agencies across North America,” said Steve Seoane, executive vice president and general manager of public safety at CentralSquare. “Going forward, seamless two-way integration between CAD systems will come standard out of the box on the CentralSquare Public Safety platform. As soon as a community deploys the CentralSquare Public Safety Platform, it will be able to seamlessly integrate law enforcement, fire and EMS resources with all neighboring communities. Our solution preserves the autonomy of each dispatch center as it integrates into existing CAD workstations. This eliminates the need for retraining dispatchers and builds on the unique local requirements at each center.”
With the acquisition, CentralSquare is promoting “public safety without borders” by building a single, virtual dispatch system across North America, where multiple agencies on disparate 9-1-1 software solutions can operate and communicate with each other as if they are on a single system, thereby reducing response time and saving lives. The FCC estimates that speeding up emergency response by one minute could save 253,032 nationally.
“For over 10 years, Tellus has been providing ‘safety without borders,’ erasing the lines between cities, towns and counties so that critical emergency response information can flow effortlessly to the closest first responder, expediting emergency response and saving lives,” said Tellus President Jonathan Mitchell. “Hundreds of agencies have using the Tellus solution to cut down emergency response time. … It’s exciting to join CentralSquare in bringing this powerful technology to the largest community of public-safety agencies in North America.”
CentralSquare will continue to support and upgrade all Tellus products for current customers, irrespective of the CAD system the agency uses, ensuring that citizens can benefit from faster response to emergencies.
“Seamless CAD-to-CAD connectivity is just one step in our vision to ensure that all agencies nationally can easily access each other’s data and resources,” said CentralSquare CEO Simon Angove. “We are making record-breaking investments in R&D to ensure that, in using artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and other technologies, we are building a network where all agencies can quickly respond to emergencies, investigate crimes, pre-detect terror threats and mitigate casualties in natural disasters. Our mission is to make North America safer by making every community smarter and stronger.”
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