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On the Horizon: Enhancements to ACN

Arlington, Va., March 12, 2004 - In the next few weeks, the National Communications System’s Alerting and Coordinating Network (ACN) will be enhanced with the introduction of a dedicated private branch exchange (PBX), new conference bridges, and the addition of a back-up voice mail system.

According to Kevin Piekarski, the ACN program manager, these changes are being made to improve ACN’s reliability and resiliency in the event of network disruption. In addition, Piekarski said the changes will serve to differentiate the ACN from the Critical infrastructure Warning Information Network (CWIN) by providing PBXs for each network.

Piekarski said the ACN PBXs will be set up in such a way that both PBXs will mirror each other, providing additional redundancy to the network. “This guarantees that should there be any disruption to the ACN as a result of one PBX suffering a problem,” he said, “the other PBX will be able to step in and take over.”

The new voice mail system is designated to ACN only. The previous system had been shared with CWIN. With this change, the capacity of the system has increased, laying the foundation for possible expansion of the network. Piekarski said users will not be affected during the implementation of these changes.

These upgrades reaffirm ACN's commitment to national security and emergency preparedness (NS/EP) communications.

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