Dubai Civil Defence arms itself with Avaya alert system

Dubai Civil Defence (DCD) has signed a multi-million dirham contract to implement a communications solution from Avaya.

Under an agreement announced today at GITEX Technology Week, Avaya will connect the DCD headquarters and its twelve branches across the city in a seamless converged communication platform.

A key feature of the solution is an emergency notification system, which will enable the DCD to respond to incidents more quickly.

This will be the first deployment of the notification system by the Civil Defence in the Middle East, Nidal Abou-Ltaif, managing director, Avaya MENA told delegates at the conference.

The system, which has an automated response enabling a faster reaction to emergencies, is already in use in the US, he said.

Abou-Ltaif added that Avaya is in negotiations with other parties in the Middle East, specifically the GCC, on provision of the solution and expected to announce further agreements shortly.

"In an emergency, every second counts; being able to respond efficiently and save lives is of paramount importance to Dubai Civil Defence," said Captain Ali Mutawa, operation room director, Dubai Civil Defence.

"Establishing prompt and reliable contact makes all the difference to public safety. To support critical emergency communications, having an efficient, secure and ‘always on' communications system was a necessity that Avaya fulfilled," he added.

The emergency notification system ensures that staff at DCD are alerted within seconds and ready to respond to an emergency. The technology also requires confirmation of response enabling the DCD to quickly identify how many people have picked up the message.

"They needed to react faster to incidents and the best way to do that is through communications," Abou-Ltaif said at the conference. "This kind of system enables them to quickly respond in a cost-effective way."

Co-ordination of members to incidents was traditionally done by wireless, but this could be impacted by human latency, Abou-Ltaif said.

"The solution will optimize the availability of people resources at any location from the very first attempt," he said. "This will drastically improve emergency response capabilities, enhance productivity, and save the DCD a substantial amount in annual communication costs," he added.

Avaya said its project with the DCD will have two phases: In the first phase, which should finish in 50 days, the communications solution will be implemented.

Abou-Ltaif said the first phase was a "multi-million dirham" contract, adding "more than two, but less than ten" and refusing to be drawn on a specific amount.

A second phase will see the DCD set up a call center, expected to be functional by next summer.