TMCnet - Rave Wireless, a provider of safety applications for mobile users, announced that over 20 additional colleges and universities have launched Rave mobile safety applications this year, bringing the total number of participating higher education institutions to nearly 150.

A number of these schools, along with several pre-existing Rave Alert clients, turned to Rave for the company's "next generation" mobile safety solution - Rave Guardian. Howard University, Colorado State University, the College of DuPage and others will deploy this patented technology, which enables users to transform their mobile phones into location-aware personal safety devices to be monitored by and instantly connected with police.

Rave explained that about half of the new Rave-enabled schools also recognize the importance of multi-modal emergency notification systems and are deploying Rave Alert systems using multiple communications channels. While Short Message Service (SMS) notifications to cell phones continue to be the primary vehicle for delivering emergency alerts to tens-of-thousands of students within several minutes, many of Rave's clients are also issuing alerts through voice messages, emails, RSS feeds, IM services such as AIM, and social networks, such as Facebook. Augmenting SMS emergency alerts with one or several other modes of communication increases the likelihood of reaching all members of the campus population. Rave Alert is a fully hosted system and can be integrated with universities' information systems, allowing administrators to seamlessly issue emergency notifications through each institution's selected communications channels.