Students’ cell phones collectively buzzed Wednesday at 9 a.m. when Information Technology Services tested a new provider for the University’s emergency text messaging system.The message tested the procedures of Rave Mobile Safety, said John Borne, chief information security officer. Rave is a candidate to replace FirstCall, the service provider the University has used for several years.The University currently uses FirstCall because the Board of Regents provides the service free to Louisiana higher education institutions, Borne said. But each university will be responsible for its own system when the Board discontinues that policy in July because of budget cuts, Borne said.The University has the option to either pick up the subsidy of FirstCall’s contract or find a new system to use. Rave was tested because of its reputation for being fast, Borne said.”Rave is well-known as one of the leading providers, so we wanted to see what they had to offer,” Borne said.Borne said Rave’s performance was “definitely an improvement” over past tests. It took Rave about 59 seconds to send out 33,317 messages, 98 percent of which were received within 6 minutes, Borne said.ITS is reviewing Rave’s statistics and will present them to the Emergency Operations Committee to discuss performance and cost, Borne said.”The cost of Rave will probably be higher than FirstCall,” Borne said. “We need to evaluate cost versus improved performance.”FirstCall has charged about $3,000 per year in the past, but future estimates for both companies are uncertain, Borne said.–Contact Ryan Buxton at [email protected]