TULARE, Calif. -- A Fresno, Calif.-based technology startup has brought the next generation of neighborhood watch to downtown Tulare, Calif. -- and the two-person company is hoping it will soon expand across the country.Band of Neighbors has spent the past few years developing a way for business owners and residents to alert each other to criminal activity in their neighborhood.Their system, which passes alerts from one member to other members and law enforcement and public safety agencies, debuted this week.Michael Wanke, Band of Neighbors' chief executive officer, demonstrated by calling in to the system a report of a suspicious person wearing a dress shirt, nice tie and dark slacks -- in fact, a description of himself.About 45 seconds later, the cell phones of the business owners at the event started ringing with the message Wanke had sent. For the dozen or so business owners taking part in Band of Neighbors' first commercial launch, it was proof that the system worked."It's really about disseminating information more effectively, and helping the police be more effective," Wanke said. Passing on reports of illegal or suspicious activity to many people at once will allow those people to be on the lookout for the same activity, and better prepared to help the police with specific information, he said.Band of Neighbors' first customers are about a dozen downtown Tulare merchants, said Jerry Magoon of the Tulare Improvement Project, a group of business owners seeking to improve safety in the area.The Tulare Police Department has signed on to take calls from the network, though they will go to the crime prevention unit, not the 911 dispatcher.But Wanke said law enforcement agencies don't need to be involved to make the networks useful to business or neighborhood groups."Obviously, the more people involved, the better," he said. "But a network can be effective with only two or three members."Band of Neighbors founder Bob Hayden came up with the concept in the early 1990s, planning on using pagers to do what the Internet now makes much more cost-effective, Wanke said.The company sells plans that range from simple to deluxe, at prices of $6.99 to $16.99 per month.Band of Neighbors is working with two other groups, one commercial and one residential, interested in using the company's system, Wanke said.While the company had been in "pre-revenue" mode until this week's launch, Wanke hopes to see profitability within the next two years. The system is designed to be expandable to much larger groups and, because it's Internet-based, users can set up networks far from Band of Neighbors' headquarters, he said."We'd like to take this across the United States and beyond," he said.E-mail Jeff St. John at jeffstjohn(at)fresnobee.com.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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