A rose is a rose is a rose…and fire department software is software is software. Or is it?
With so many products to choose from, it can be difficult to peel off the skin and compare them at a nuts-and-bolts level. FireQ is an all-in-one solution that is different from most other products currently on the market. It was designed with and for firefighters to give them more features, more choices, and more options.
Like most available firefighter technology, it provides firefighters with emergency alerts via text, phone call, push notification and email.
But…did you know that there are two types of text messages? When received on a cellular phone, they look exactly the same, despite how they may have been sent; but they are not created equally.
An email-to-text message is a message that is created and sent like an email, but it is received as a text message. An email address is created using a cellular phone number. Delivery relies on a number of inter-connected servers which can slow delivery and there is no way to track if a message has been successfully delivered.
A true-type text message (also known as SMS or short message service) is a message sent from one cellular phone number to another. On cellular networks, true-type texts have a higher priority than email for transmission which ensures more reliable delivery. Text messages also provide delivery reporting.
So…if they look the same, how can you tell what type of text message you are receiving? Email-to-text messages are one-way only. True text messages are two-way communications to which you can respond.
FireQ provides true-type text messages because giving firefighters more choice and more options is important. Each FireQ system has a dedicated and unique telephone number that makes it possible to respond to both the text and the phone call. Firefighters who use FireQ can signal their intent to respond to an emergency in three ways:
1) Via the text message.
They simply respond to the text by typing “yes” or “no”. Firefighters who respond to the actual text message appear in the responders list so other firefighters know they are on their way.
2) Via the phone call
They simply press “1” for yes and “2” for no. Firefighters who respond to phone call appear in the responders list so other firefighters know they are on their way.
3) Directly from the FireQ app.
Firefighters who respond using the app appear in the responders list and have access to more critical information, including mapping data and access to pre-plans.
Not all firefighters have smart phones. Not all fire departments are located in places with reliable cellular service. All firefighters and all fire departments, however, want options and choice on how they receive their emergency alerts and how they respond to them. They call it redundancy. By providing response options that recognize this, FireQ ensures that all firefighters of all departments have a way to receive emergency alerts and respond to them…because firefighters deserve more features, more choices, and more options.
