Columbus, OH, July 21, 2010: Twenty First Century Communications (TFCC) today announced that it has been chosen by the City of Hesperia as its’ emergency notification system provider. 

“After a competitive bidding process, the City of Hesperia is pleased to select Twenty First Century Communications to provide emergency notifications to its residents,” said Mayor Thurston “Smitty” Smith, “The City makes every effort to be a source of reliable information during times of emergencies, and TFCC provides another means of disseminating accurate time sensitive information to the residents of Hesperia.”

The primary use of the system will be to disseminate messages pertaining to the health, safety or welfare of the City of Hesperia when it is affected by a perceived, emerging, or imminent emergency event such as:  severe weather, water contamination, missing persons, wildfire warnings, and much more.

With TFCC’s emergency notification system the City of Hesperia will be able to send time-sensitive, targeted messages to select groups and geographic areas andis capable of reaching landlines, cellular and VoIP phones, BlackBerrys/PDAs, pagers and TTY/TTD devices for the hearing impaired. Messages can also be sent via SMS/text messaging, fax, email and Twitter. 

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Columbus, Ohio, July 20, 2010: To succeed in today’s fast-paced world, utilities must communicate with their customers in every imaginable way, including landlines, cell phones, pagers, voicemail, text messaging, e-mail and more. Twenty First Century Communications (TFCC), provider of utility communication solutions, and iFactor Consulting, a leading supplier of utility software and consulting services, today announced a strategic alliance offering utilities new ways of using technology to connect people to information.

Utilities have long used TFCC’s High Volume Call Answering system to field the large influx of calls during power outages.  Now, in case of a power outage, TFCC utility customers can tap into iFactor’s Storm Center and Notifi technology.  Storm Center lets utility customers go online to see the extent of the power outage, even down to their local area. Notifi is an enterprise communications system which allows utilities to communicate with customers using email and text message.

According to Jim Kennedy, TFCC chief executive officer, “Teaming with iFactor and their Storm Center and Notifi products is an important step in the evolution of our Utility Communication Solution.” 

Utilities that achieve best-in-class customer satisfaction ratings recognize the tremendous value in effectively communicating with customers. “Using TFCC technology to communicate with utility customers opens up the mobile communication channel and is a key step in reducing costs. But the biggest benefit for utilities is improved customer service.” Kennedy added.

According to Brad Sileo, iFactor vice president of business development, the key is letting utility customers decide how they want to communicate with their utility. “iFactor’s outage communications product suite dovetails perfectly with TFCC’s utility communications solution. Combining TFCC’s 20 years of utility experience with iFactor opens up web and mobile channels to utilities.”

TFCC’s Utility Communication Solution handles a wide variety of common outage messages including real-time outage alerts, outage updates, planned events, and unplanned events. Other uses include reminders for billing & payment, service appointments, program enrollment, energy usage and load curtailment.

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Columbus, OH July 8, 2010: Twenty First Century Communications (TFCC) today announced that it has been chosen by Fairfield County, OH as the emergency notification system provider.

“Fairfield County is extremely happy to be working with a local partner that has demonstrated reliability in Central Ohio. We look forward to providing the best emergency notifications to our citizens and community partners now and in the future,” said Jon Kochis, Director, Fairfield County Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.

The primary use of the system will be to send messages pertaining to the health, safety or welfare of the residents of Fairfield County when affected by a perceived, emerging, or imminent emergency event. With TFCC the county will be able to send emergency notifications for situations such as:  severe weather, evacuations, water contamination, missing persons, hostage situations, and much more.

TFCC’s emergency notification system is capable of reaching landlines, cellular and VoIP phones, BlackBerrys/PDAs, pagers and TTY/TTD devices for the hearing impaired. Messages can also be sent via SMS/text messaging, fax, email and Twitter.

“Fairfield County has joined a growing list of government agencies that rely on TFCC for rapid, reliable emergency notification,” said James Kennedy, CEO of Twenty First Century Communications. “We are looking forward to assisting the county in deploying a system that will help keep citizens safe and informed.”

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Columbus, Ohio, June 10, 2010: Twenty First Century Communications (TFCC) today announced that it has been chosen by the City of Tampa, FL as the emergency notification system provider.

“We went through an extensive evaluation process and we feel conficent that TFCC will meet and exceed all of our emergency notification needs. The new system will allow us to disseminate critical time-sensitive messages pertaining to the health, safety or welfare of Tampa residents when affeted by a perceived, emerging, or imminent emergency event,” said Tom Forward, Fire Chief and Emergency Manager fot he City of Tampa. Examples of such situations are:  severe weather warnings, water contamination alerts, chemical spills, pandemic advisories, train accidents, and road construction.

With TFCC’s emergency notification system Tampa will be able to send time-sensitive, targeted messages to select groups and geographic areas and is capable of reaching landlines, cellular and VoIP phones, BlackBerrys/PDAs, pagers and TTY/TTD devices for the hearing impaired. Messages can also be sent via SMS/text messaging, fax, email and Twitter.

“The City of Tampa has joined a growing list of government agencies that rely on TFCC for rapid, reliable mass notification,” said James Kennedy, CEO of Twenty First Century Communications. “We are looking forward to assisting the City of Tampa in deploying this system that will help keep citizens safe and informed.”

Columbus, Ohio, June 1, 2010:  Twenty First Century Communications (TFCC) announces the release of TFCC Alert®, the newest version of its emergency notification system. New advanced alerting capabilities improve communications, increase the effectiveness of emergency efforts, and ultimately reduce the costs of a traditional communications infrastructure.

With the TFCC Alert emergency notification system, government, corporate, utility, education and healthcareclients can send targeted messages to select groups or geographic areas by landline, cell phone, VoIP phone, PDA, pager, text, email, fax and TTY/TDD machines. The system also integrates with Twitter, which will give clients greater reach in fewer steps.

Jim Curran, chief technology officer for TFCC reports, “Our research and development process includes extensive work with government, corporate, utility, education and healthcare clients who use our emergency notification system every day. TFCC Alert is a blend of ideas and requests from customers, our product development team and our client management team.”

TFCC Alert includes a new user inferface. The task-based workflow and one-page quick launch make sending norifications stress-free. Users now select the type of message they’d like to send and TFCC Alert will present only the options needed for that particular message type.

Lynn Diebold, director of emergency communications for Monterey County, CA, has previewed the system and said, “I like that the activation and creation process is uncluttered, and that the default options are customizable and can be changed based on my needs.”

TFCC Alert allows for an unlimited number of users and includes a flexible array of user profiles with different permissions, access and visibility restrictions. The system also allows for limitless security groups and provides clients with the ability to self-manage their groups.

In reviewing the new features, Brian Saul, Corporate Director EC & Safety Management for Ohio Health Corporation/Grant Riverside Methodist Hospital, said, “I love the idea of unlimited security groups and the one-page campaign activation. And because most of the campaign activation are pre-made, the one-page “select message and go” option is ideal for us.”

“TFCC Alert is straight forward and simple. I’m very pleased that the activation process takes one page instead of multiple pages. The new look is much cleaner”, said Bob Armstrong, director, emergency management & fire prevention for The Ohio State University.

The new weather module lets government agencies notify citizens of rapidly approaching severe weather. The public can register to receive severe thunderstorm, flash flood and tornado warnings on their landline or cell phone.

Government agencies can continue to collect unlisted phone numbers, cell phone numbers and email addresses via our enhanced public sign-up page. The new sign-up page allows residents to register up to five additional contacts under their account, such as parents, siblings, and spouses.

TFCC Alert is backed by our client care commitment. Each client is partnered with a dedicated client manager and supported by our live 24/7/365 Help Desk. Clients now also have access to the new online Resource Center. Here clients will find best practices, FAQ’s, sample operating procedures, training exercises and much more. All of this is in addition to the enhanced Online Help, a search-able online database of easy-to-find technical help.