LYNDONVILLE, N.Y. — Oct. 10, 2017 — Monroe Electronics today introduced HALO, an enterprise-level Emergency Alert Systems (EAS) management solution capable of overseeing all encoders/decoders and facilitating command of all connected EAS devices within an organization. HALO gives cable operators a centralized means of managing EAS devices with minimal staffing, thereby reducing the cost and complexity of operation and compliance and guarding against outages.
"With EAS regulations, content-distribution technologies, and FCC requirements continually and rapidly evolving, EAS management and compliance are becoming more and more complex and require near-constant attention. What was once a simple task is now anything but, and a single misconfigured device could impact thousands if not millions of customers. Organizations that fail to keep up face increasingly significant fines," said Bill Robertson, vice president of business development for Monroe Electronics. "Any operation that maintains multiple EAS devices will benefit from HALO, no matter how many devices or the organization's size. The savings in labor and compliance costs alone are easily justified, and further value comes from preventing even a single mass customer outage."
HALO goes beyond simple EAS log-gathering to provide a far more comprehensive range of data from each device, including originated, decoded, and forwarded alerts; configuration changes; operational status; current software/hardware versions; and analog and digital monitoring data such as radio frequency, signal strength, and Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) inputs; among a vast amount of other summary detail required by the FCC. In so doing, HALO provides a far more complete picture of the EAS landscape and greater situational awareness of each device than ever before. Credentialed experts from various departments, such as engineering, compliance, legal, and management, can access this wealth of information within seconds — information that otherwise could take days and numerous people to assemble using any other means.
HALO combines EAS operations and compliance under one umbrella for unified configuration control, EAS log reporting, and error/alarm monitoring.
"As the guardian of the EAS infrastructure, HALO oversees the health and status of each EAS device, alerting key personnel of critical changes, centralizing the management of configuration settings, managing software updates, and consolidating FCC-mandated EAS test results," said E. Scott Nix, director of strategic projects for Monroe Electronics and HALO product manager. "HALO is a true game-changer for the EAS industry — and particularly for MSOs with multiple headend locations — and we're very pleased it has already been named a finalist for this month's Diamond Technology Award from Broadcast Technology Report."
Because of this comprehensiveness and speed, companies can streamline the complex processes performed throughout the organization and decrease the time spent on EAS-related matters while simultaneously reducing errors — thereby increasing efficiencies and proactively addressing any potential compliance or subscriber issues.
For example, the FCC's Sixth Report and Order states that cable operators must report national EAS tests through the online EAS Test Reporting System (ETRS) — meaning participants must fill in at least 81 individual data fields for each EAS device in each national test. Consolidating this information from multiple locations is an incredibly time-consuming task, but HALO provides all the information within minutes of a test ending.
HALO is intelligent software that supervises any number of distributed EAS devices. The software comes in modules so that companies can design the solution that best fits their size and needs. Besides the core module, which, as the name suggests, serves as the heart of the HALO solution, there are nine other modules available for functions such as advanced configuration, EAS logging, redundancy, advanced reporting, and license key management.
More information about Monroe Electronics products is available at www.monroe-electronics.com.
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About Monroe Electronics
Monroe Electronics began operations in 1954 designing and manufacturing specialized electrostatic discharge (ESD) instrumentation that continues today. From its headquarters in Lyndonville, New York, the company provides R&D, manufacturing, sales, and customer service for all Monroe Electronics, One-Net™, and Digital Alert Systems brands. Monroe Electronics' Emergency Alert Systems (EAS) are the widely accepted standard for CATV with a hard-earned reputation for quality, reliability, and service to valued customers around the world. In October 2009, Digital Alert Systems, the leading innovator of next-generation Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) and EAS merged with Monroe Electronics to further extend its product offerings to radio and television broadcasters and better serve their collective customers into the future.
More information is available at www.monroe-electronics.com.
All trademarks appearing herein are the property of their respective owners.
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