With the COVID-19 outbreak and various levels of lockdown, I’ve had a lot of time to read books and watch television. One of the technologies being heavily advertised is the 5G wireless technology, which is supposed to revolutionize cellular and internet connectivity.

But what is it going to do for our industry?

Communication — both with end users and emergency personnel — has always been an essential part of any monitoring business. The methods through which monitoring centers communicate, though, have become incredibly varied.

Companies are racing to implement phone-based credentials to increase security and user convenience. In general, that’s a good thing. However, if you’re thinking they’ll finally solve all of your identity security and credential management issues, think again.  

Rave Collaborate addresses needs unmet by traditional incident management solutions with an intuitive tool to coordinate preparedness and response for both planned activities and unplanned emergencies. 

Today, DMP released its new line of alarm communication radios that are FirstNet Ready and approved for use on FirstNet.

Emergency24, an Underwriters Laboratory-listed central station that writes its own proprietary software, and BluePoint Alert Solutions, a company that focuses on hardware installation, training and implementation of Rapid Emergency Response Systems (RERS), have partnered to leverage each companies’ capabilities to minimize the impact of crisis situations, such as an active shooter event or natural disaster.

The tool has been designed as a centralized platform giving installers and system administrators instant access to key information they need to install and manage Paxton products and solutions on the go. 

Interface Security Systems, a managed services provider delivering managed network, business security and business intelligence solutions to distributed enterprises, recently provided Thrive Restaurant Group — one of Applebee’s largest franchisees in the U.S. — with scalable network, communications and security services. 

PSB Exero is a monitoring platform that is compatible with all networked devices. Its powerful and user-friendly dashboard provides insight into device and network performance, and when a networked device goes down, Exero knows immediately, so it can be fixed immediately. 

Google, OnStar, ADT, Priority Dispatch and Rave Mobile Safety are the most recent additions to RapidDeploy’s Unified Critical Response (UCR) ecosystem, which already has partnerships with AT&T, Microsoft, AT&T FirstNet and Esri, among others.