Initial situation:
With more than 200 shops and 25 restaurants spread over an area of 93,000 square metres, 'Il centro' in Arese is one of the largest shopping centres in Europe and visited every day by thousands of people who shop or work there.
Problem:
The shopping centre was looking for a system capable of instantly and directly alerting all shops within it of an emergency or dangerous situation. The idea of ownership was in fact to generate an alarm on the DECT handsets in each shop, so that the employees of the facility are immediately informed.
The most complex part of the request was the large area on which the shopping centre is developed and the large number of DECT devices within the area, to which the alarm signal is to be transmitted simultaneously.
Solution:
The emergency management system proposed by Irbema, based on DECT communication technology, can manage up to 254 terminals with 120 simultaneous calls.
Master terminals are configurable enabled to activate/deactivate emergency signalling calls, enabling the alarm generator to coordinate the emergency according to the areas concerned.
Emergency management consists of three main steps:
- GENERAL ALARM MESSAGE SENDING
The operator, by pressing a button at one of the sites set up for emergency management (or by a call from the DECT Master terminals), sends a message priority general to the DECT cordless handsets in the shopping centre, choosing the emergency message to be sent to the terminals. The latter will display a message on their display so as to detect the specificity of the event. The communication will be accompanied by a dedicated warning tonedifferent from that emitted when receiving a normal telephone call.
- GENERAL SENDING OF EMERGENCY VOICE MESSAGE
The Server takes immediate action, using its line resources, to automatically contact DECT devices. Upon receiving the call, the user must answer it and, after listening to the voice message, press a key to acceptance (e.g. 0 or #). If there is no answer, the line is busy or the accept button is not pressed, the system will automatically recall the terminal repeatedly.
The application also provides the possibility of contacting external GSM numbers using the same procedure.
- VERIFICATION AND EVENT REGISTRATION
By means of a synoptic panel available at an IP address with a WEB interface (password-protected), it is possible to check the status of terminals at any time to detect any unconnected terminals and, during the alarm procedure, detect the status of the activated alert. This makes it possible to identify who has received and correctly confirmed the alert. At the end of the procedure, the screen shows the final status of the alert. All activities carried out by the system are trackedor following the activation of the emergency procedure all actions performed can be displayedlinked to the date, time and outcome of calls. 
- Strengths of the system:The system for emergency management via DECT network is not only limited to the general emergency alarm call, but has other applications such as:
- The use of DECT systems facilitates the location within the structurebased on the position of the handset in relation to the DECT cells. The position of the device can be plotted on a map
- The PPT functionality gives the possibility of make group calls at the push of a button. Particularly useful in noisy environments, the speaker mode is by default and all microphones are set to 'muted' automatically (to avoid background noise)
- Ascom DECT handsets have dedicated features for remote workers such as manual alarm (pressing a button), man down and not movement
- Activation of external devices at the press of a button, such as sirens, gates, doors, telephone dialers, ...
- Interfacing to alarm server through a connection card. Mobile devices can be recipients of alarms from the alarm management server
- Sending LAN messaging: any PC connected to the network and equipped with a browser can send messages to one or more cordless telephones
- Centralised management thanks to Ascom Unite with features such as: centralised phonebook, application setting, backup settings of individual handsets, firmware updates, receiving e-mails on handsets, interfacing with the GSM cellular system, ...
