Alert Cascade Announces Partnership With CereProc, Producing the First Mass Notification Service to Include UK Text to Speech (TTS) Voices With Regional Accents

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Alert Cascade Limited

29 Nov, 2016, 09:30 GMT

LONDON, November 29, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

As one of the few remaining UK owned and operated mass notification companies, Alert Cascade's latest platform release builds on the UK theme by including regional TTS voices designed and engineered by specialists based in Edinburgh.

Traditionally, UK TTS has been centred around Received Pronunciation (RP), but recent estimates show that only around 2% of the UK population actually use RP, with the figure being even lower in Northern Ireland and Scotland. With research showing that it is easier for listeners to process information when it is presented in the same accent they use, Alert Cascade's new release features regionally accented TTS voices for the first time.

Mass notification services are often used to provide vital information and instructions in difficult situations; Russell Pearson, Director of Alert Cascade Limited comments: "Our platforms are used for everything from letting parents know that schools are closed to warning and informing members of the public in the event of an incident at a petrochemical or nuclear site. Whilst there are some good "Queen's English" voices on the market, we felt that it was important to use voices that more accurately represent the people we're communicating with, and which make it easier for vital information to be clearly understood. The last thing we want during an emergency situation is people misunderstanding the message; our new partnership with CereProc has been exceptionally well received by customers and really does add another dimension to our voice messages."

Paul Welham, CEO of CereProc comments: "At CereProc, we've always wanted to push the boundaries of TTS and develop voices that not only communicated the message clearly but also delighted the user (rather than annoy them, which was often the case with standard TTS voices in the past). That's why we've focused on creating a wide range of voices with regional accents that sound real and have character! We're delighted to see that companies, like Alert Cascade, really listen to what their customers want and understand that audio is a crucial part of their identity."

About Alert Cascade Limited: 

  • Alert Cascade (alertcascade.co.uk) specialises in communication and collaboration solutions for business continuity, disaster recovery, crisis communications, operations management and the control room environment.
  • Alert Cascade is 100% UK owned and operated.
  • Alert Cascade's contingency and continuity solutions have been used successfully in the aftermath of the Asian Tsunami disaster, during the 7/7 London bombings and for response, collaboration and recovery from factory fires, power failures, sever weather, IT disasters and numerous other incidents across EMEA.
  • Over 200 customers worldwide are using Alert Cascade to protect their organisation and members of the public, including Sellafield Limited, Yorkshire Building Society, Biffa, Shell, BP, Holkham Hall and BASF.
  • For more information about Alert Cascade's products and solutions, please contact the sales department:

About CereProc Limited: 

  • CereProc (cereproc.com) is the only text-to-speech company in the UK. We're based in Edinburgh, Scotland - the home of advanced speech synthesis research, with a sales office in London.
  • CereProc team consists of leading speech experts who have extensive experience across the entire speech technology domain.
  • CereVoice, CereProc's breakthrough voice engine, is available on any platform, from mobile and embedded devices to desktops and servers.
  • CereProc's commercial quality voices can be developed a lot faster and at a fraction of the cost of traditional custom TTS voices, that is why we have the likes of Intel, Bloomberg and the Swedish Government ordering custom voices from us.
  • For more information about CereProc's products and solutions, please contact:

Contact: Emma Lane
Tel: 0203 50 30 999
Mobile:  07432 038607
Email: emma@alertcascade.co.uk
Website: www.alertcascade.co.uk