January 25, 2011 — Additional Paging and Notification Features Underscore Biamp's Commitment to Evolving Vocia to Meet the Needs of the Dynamic Life Safety Market

BEAVERTON, Oregon — Biamp® Systems introduces release 1.2 of Vocia, Biamp Systems' critical paging and life safety system and one of Biamp's newest Networked Media Systems. Compliant with today's most stringent life safety standards such as EN 54-16, Vocia 1.2 provides improved scalability for seamless integration in almost any size facility, and delivers control and notification options that make it possible to remotely monitor system health.

"We were pleased to see strong demand for Vocia in all the major markets which Biamp serves worldwide," said Steve Metzger, President of Biamp Systems. "We are also proud of the fact that Vocia was one of the first products ever to obtain EN 54-16 product certification and is approved to work in installations requiring EN 60849 and AS 60849 system certification. Vocia 1.2 adds even greater flexibility when designing a critical paging system, so that our customers can develop and build highly flexible solutions with a rich collection of features and functionality for their very important projects. With this new release, Vocia offers more powerful and flexible design options for integrators, and high value to the end-user."

Vocia Overview
Vocia is a powerful and scalable critical paging and voice evacuation system designed for facilities of all sizes. Employing Biamp's rich audio legacy, Vocia incorporates superior intelligibility, distributed processing, page routing, and networked audio and control — features not often found in typical life safety systems. Vocia's networked approach eliminates the single point of system failure, allowing for decentralized design and a system that is expandable from a single paging station and amplifier to a more complex paging system across several zones and multiple buildings.

Vocia 1.2 Hardware Upgrades
At the forefront of the Vocia 1.2 upgrades is the enhanced Life Safety Interface device (LSI-16e), the emergency interface that communicates between Vocia and emergency/fire alarm systems. The LSI-16e device expands the number of discrete emergency zones from four to 20, adding 16 additional option inputs and up to 500 virtual inputs, 50 emergency zones, and 10 emergency messages per zone. The LSI-16e software has also been improved, making it possible to trigger a warning message followed by an emergency message and assign up to nine emergency messages and one additional mute to each emergency zone.

Vocia 1.2 also includes: an Interface Module card (IM-16) that can be added to the current Life Safety Interface device to expand the number of emergency zones; an Aux Port on each of the paging stations that allows third-party control systems via RS232 connection, provides access to all standard paging control functionalities and allows users to select paging destinations on-the-fly from a visual facilities map; and an EN 54-16 compliant Emergency Wall Station microphone (EWS-10).

Vocia 1.2 Software Upgrades
Vocia 1.2 offers new notification options in the event of an emergency. With the remote monitoring capabilities, Vocia 1.2 can be programmed to notify administrators via email whenever an event triggers an alarm. This feature is ideal for facility and security managers of multi-campus organizations, or buildings where onsite access is limited.

Vocia 1.2 also incorporates enhanced software control by expanding the abilities of the Vocia Text Protocol (VTP), which allows users to restart specified devices and change zone parameters such as volume, source selection, and mute. Additionally, the software gives an indication of the current control state (active/inactive).

Vocia Installations Worldwide
"In every region we've seen an increase in demand for solutions that provide superior audio quality and are fully compliant with life safety standards," said Graeme Harrison, Vice President of Biamp's International Sales. "From the Copenhagen Airport in Demark to the Sydney Olympic Park in Australia, our customers can be confident that our products meet all of the latest standards and will provide unparalleled performance and intelligibility that no other product can match."

Vocia Installations in North America
"Critical paging systems play a vital role in the most highly trafficked venues in North America, including the Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Oregon," said Ron Camden, Vice President of Biamp's North American Sales. "At the same time, facilities of varying sizes, down to the local shopping mall, also rely on critical paging systems and demand a product that will work every time and that will clearly communicate messages."