Digital EAS System Established in Mississippi

Global Security Systems said its Mississippi statewide emergency alert network has been tested successfully. The network, described in reports here earlier, was created under contract to the Mississippi Office of Homeland Security.
During a test of the FEMA Digital Emergency Alert System run from Virginia, GSS stated, its system “demonstrated live interoperability by delivering EAS text messages via FM radio signals (through Mississippi Public Broadcasting and private FM networks) to the cell phones of test participants in Jackson.”
The system is a single-to-multipoint messaging system to provide redundant distribution of emergency alert messages should responders’ radios and cell phones get clogged with traffic or become ineffective. GSS said it uses a commercial FM receiver chip that can be inserted into pagers, smoke detectors, cell phones, PDAs and other devices to alert responders and provide information as a situation develops.
Mississippi Public Broadcasting is involved; it partnered with the state Office of Homeland Security to allow use of its tower network in support of the alert system, which Sen. Trent Lott called the first of its kind in the country.
GSS is a systems integrator, service provider and manufacturer of homeland security and natural disaster first alert systems. It is headquartered in Jackson.