Patent ID: 7675423

Claim:
A mass occupant notification system comprising: an alert source for generating an alert signal containing information regarding an emergency situation; a first communication network in communication with the alert source, the first communication network for communicating the alert signal from the alert source; a mass occupant notification supervisory system in communication with the first communication network, the mass occupant notification supervisory system for receiving the alert signal and generating an alert message based thereon, wherein the alert message comprises audio message data and destination data, the destination data indicating a destination of the audio message data; a second communication network in communication with the mass occupant notification supervisory system, the second communication network for communicating the alert message from the mass occupant notification supervisory system; a satellite radio broadcast network system in communication with the second communication network, the satellite radio broadcast network system for receiving the alert message, extracting the destination data and the audio message data from the alert message, formatting the audio message data for transmission via a satellite uplink, and transmitting at least the audio message data via the satellite uplink to one or more satellite radio broadcast network satellites; and a plurality of mass occupant notification communication units, one or more of which are operable to receive the audio message data transmitted from the satellite radio broadcast network satellites and generate an analog audio signal based on the audio message data.