HomeMy WebLinkAboutIR 9643 INFORMAL REPORT TO CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS No. 9643
To the Mayor and Members of the City Council June 10, 2014
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SUBJECT: NIXLE EMAIL, TEXT AND TELEPHONE NOTIFICATION SYSTEM
The purpose of this report is to brief the Council on the Nixle Emergency Alerting system and
results from the May 7t" voice test.
Nixle is a Community Emergency Information Service built exclusively to provide secure
and reliable warning and alerting for communities and organizations. Nixle can deliver e-
mails and phone text alerts to citizens during emergencies and disasters. The City of Fort
Worth has been utilizing Nixle since 2009. Citizens are required to register for the free
service. Currently 17,923 citizens are enrolled. Nixle is also used to send e-mails and SMS-
text alerts to employees to support internal emergency communications.
A new Nixle feature being introduced is the ability to make voice notifications. This feature
was tested on May 7t". The primary purpose of the test was to evaluate the capacity of the
local telephone switches across the city and minimize any adverse impact on the 911 system.
The initial test involved calling 112,656 residential and business locations. The test was
successfully completed in one hour. The Nixle system now has the data necessary to
maximize the number of notifications without overloading a telephone switch or limiting access
to the 911 system.
The test also revealed, however, additional issues which staff is working with Nixle and AT&T
to resolve. These issues include reports of garbled messages, out of service telephone
numbers and a delay in reporting call results. Staff scheduled an initial meeting with Nixle
and AT&T for May 23rd. The meeting was rescheduled due to AT&T technical experts
scheduling conflict. The meeting is now planned for June 12, 2014. Following the meeting
any additional testing will be scheduled as necessary to improve the system.
Below is a summary of the statistics from the initial voice notification test.
Delivery Statistics
Voice
Sent112,656
Start Time 05/07 13:01:44
Finish Time 05/07 13:59:55
ISSUED BY THE CITY MANAGER FORT WORTH, TEXAS
INFORMAL REPORT TO CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS No. 9643
To the Mayor and Members of the City Council June 10, 2014
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SUBJECT: NIXLE EMAIL, TEXT AND TELEPHONE NOTIFICATION SYSTEM
Nixie Test Results
21% Delivered 59,775
IIIIIIII Busy 7,538
No Pick-up 21,346
19%
Out of Service 23,997
For additional information regarding the Nixle system, please contact Juan Ortiz at 817-392-6170.
Tom Higgins
City Manager
ISSUED BY THE CITY MANAGER FORT WORTH, TEXAS