COPS to offer mPERS monitoring

WILLIAMSTOWN, N.J.—COPS Monitoring, a company with a network of six monitoring centers across the U.S., is looking to monitor mobile personal emergency response systems for its dealers this year.

“MPERS has been growing in popularity since its introduction several years ago,” David Smith, COPS' VP of marketing and business development, told Security Systems News in an email interview. Smith added that the company's move to offer mPERS monitoring stems from dealers, and their customers who are requesting additional protection outside of their homes and businesses. “However, instead of jumping right onto MPERS when it was first introduced, we elected to take a more cautious approach, waiting for the GPS technology and dynamic PSAP databases to mature and to identify the best products,” he said.

“MPERS monitoring for our dealer is scheduled to be available in later summer followed by the possibility of monitoring additional MPERS products,” Smith said. COPS is currently working with select dealers and mPERS manufacturers, which are yet to be released.

The company has been developing a strategy for mPERS since the technology was released, Smith said. “Essentially, the process began identifying market leaders and products that we were comfortable standing behind. As with many new technologies, GPS had early challenges such as overall GPS accuracy, and difficulty pinpointing devices in multi-story buildings, subterranean parking structures, areas with multiple buildings, and other areas that may have impeded on our ability to send the help needed.  In addition, while there were many companies entering the MPERS market, to us, there was no clear product leader,” he said.

“Now that the technology has matured, and because we've identified the leading products, we're giving MPERS our full attention. First, by integrating mapping software though our API to facilitate the monitoring mobile products and to be able to dynamically identify the correct authorities based on longitude and latitude,” Smith said.

COPS is also building out “dedicated MPERS dispatch centers” in two of its locations, according to Smith. “The new dispatch centers will be specifically designed for MPERS monitoring and our dispatchers will receive specialized training for MPERS, CPR, HIPPA compliance, and potentially EMD certification.”

COPS will be supporting its dealers by monitoring mPERS devices, not working to distribute the devices to consumers, Smith noted.

Incorporating mPERS also means increasing staffing. “We expect that we will be adding approximately 40 dedicated MPERS positions over the next year, and more than double that in the second year,” said Smith.