Temecula, Calif., March 11, 2011 — The Denco Area 9-1-1 District in Texas is in the process of upgrading its emergency call centers to the next generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) call processing solution, Sentinel Call Manager (CM), from emergency communications leader Cassidian Communications (formerly PlantCML), an EADS North America company.

“When the time came to upgrade our existing 9-1-1 call taking and mapping solutions to a NG9-1-1 call processing solution, we wanted to work with a company that is technologically progressive and provides reliable equipment, applications and service solution sets. For those reasons, Cassidian Communications was selected as our vendor of choice,” said Mark Payne, executive director, Denco Area 9-1-1 District. “With over 40 years in the emergency communication industry, Cassidian Communications continues to build upon their proven legacy of being able to provide a quality, reliable services and solutions offering that sets them apart from competitive offerings available in the public safety marketplace.”

The Denco Area 9-1-1 District serves as the coordinating agency for emergency service throughout Denton County and the city of Carrollton in Texas. The District consists of 11 public safety answering points (PSAPs), including the Denton County Sheriff’s Office and the police departments of Carrollton, Denton, Flower Mound, Highland Village, Lake Dallas, Lewisville, Roanoke, The Colony, University of North Texas and Texas Woman’s University.

In 2010 with 56 total positions, Denco call takers fielded more than 310,000 emergency calls for service received on 9-1-1 trunks.

Payne continued, “[The] Sentinel CM [solution] stood out to us as the only solution to include carrier class telephony, feature-rich automatic call distribution (ACD), geo-diversity and true systems redundancy. With the management of our 11 PSAPs, and the likelihood of growth in the future, it’s critical that our 9-1-1 equipment provide a solid foundation along with scalability and ease-of-use. It took us no time at all to see and experience that [the] Sentinel CM [solution] does just that.”

“It’s imperative for all 9-1-1 call centers to look at the next generation of emergency call processing in order to prepare to handle and manage voice, data and video into the PSAP. At Cassidian Communications, we don’t offer a one-size-fits-all mission critical solution set. Our broad portfolio enables us to ensure that the solution that we propose best meets the fiscal, technical and operational needs of each one of our customers. In Denco’s case, it was clear that our Sentinel CM solution provided the robust functionality and features required for their demanding mission critical 9-1-1 environment,” said Darrin J. Reilly, chief operating officer, Cassidian Communications. “When you couple that need with a county whose population grew more than 50 percent from 2000 to 2009, it becomes even more important to have top quality systems in place to field the continual increase of calls and capabilities in the evolving NG9-1-1 world.”

The IP-based Sentinel CM solution features the Sentinel® user interface and manages voice communications on an Avaya CM IP-PBX creating a rich and robust ACD environment with high availability and scalability. Local survivable processors (LSP) ensure that the individual sites within Denco, a distributed multi-site environment, remain available in the case of wide area network (WAN) failure or site-specific outage, enhancing system reliability.

Rounding out the complete NG9-1-1 solution suite designed for Denco is the ORION™ Vela® advanced mapping solution, the Aurora® MIS solutionfor complete information management and the full suite of industry leading Managed Services including disaster recovery, monitoring and response, and antivirus updating, all provided by Cassidian Communications.

Cassidian Communications (formerly PlantCML) continues to serve clients ranging from public safety operations to Fortune 1000 corporations to federal agencies. Collectively, the companyhas more than 40 years of experience deploying 9-1-1 solutions, notification solutions and first-responder digital trunked radio networks.

About Cassidian Communications (www.CassidianCommunications.com)
As the largest and most trusted source of mission critical communications solutions, Cassidian Communications, an EADS North America company, is leading the way in standards-based E9-1-1 call center applications, notification solutions and services and P25 land mobile radio systems.Headquartered in Temecula, California.

About CASSIDIAN (www.cassidian.com)
Cassidian, an EADS company, is a worldwide leader in global security solutions and systems, providing Lead Systems Integration and value-added products and services to civil and military customers around the globe: air systems (aircraft and unmanned aerial systems), land, naval and joint systems, intelligence and surveillance, cyber security, secure communications, test systems, missiles, services and support solutions. In 2009, Cassidian – with around 28,000 employees – achieved revenues of € 5.4 billion. EADS is a global leader in aerospace, defence and related services. In 2009, the Group – comprising the Divisions Airbus, Astrium, Cassidian and Eurocopter – generated revenues of € 42.8 billion and employed a workforce of more than 119,000.

About EADS North America (www.eadsnorthamerica.com)
EADS North America is the North American operation of EADS, a global leader in aerospace, defense and related services. As a leader in all sectors of defense and homeland security, EADS North America and its parent company, EADS, contribute over $11 billion to the U.S. economy annually and support more than 200,000 American jobs through its network of suppliers and services. Operating in 17 states, EADS North America offers a broad array of advanced solutions to its customers in the commercial, homeland security, aerospace and defense markets.