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Emergency Broadcast System Coming To Cell Phones
gambit3 writes "The Emergency Broadcast System that interrupts TV programming in times of crisis is jumping to a new format where it might be able to reach you better — on your cell phone. The communications company Alcatel-Lucent announced Tuesday that it's creating a Broadcast Message Center that will allow government agencies to send cell phone users specific information in the event of a local, state or national emergency. It will be similar to the TV alerts in that the text messages will be geographically targeted for areas where a tornado alert or major road closure, for example, is in effect."
OK, it starts off as a good idea, but then we start getting "Amber Alerts" for cities hundreds of miles away and tornado warnings for towns hundreds of miles away and it just becomes another level of spam
will you have to pay for incoming texts? and maybe even roaming text fees as well?
Will it still work if you have texts blocked? (as to not have to pay for incoming texts?)
Reverse 911 is fantastic. Just ask our neighboring town to the south that didn't use it when their water supply was contaminated. Yeah. My coworkers spent two days in the bathroom instead of 10 seconds reading a text.
Alcatel-Lucent will use the GPS chip in smart phones and estimate the speed at which these phones are traveling and also the text typing patterns and pauses and correlate it with the zigs and zags of the GPS trace. Once it determines it is the case of texting-while-driving it will automatically call 9-1-1 and have an ambul^H^H^H^H^H mortuary van following the car to scrape the remains of the driver off the road.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
You guys do realize that EBS (Emergency Broadcast System) was replaced by EAS in 1997, and is now being replaced by CAP (Common Alerting Protocol)... Guess nobody does pay attention to them when they blast em out of the radio or TV... The reason it *CAN* soon go to mobile devices is because CAP is an IP based distribution system instead of an "over the air" distribution system.
...because unlike the mobile phone network we require a huge infrastructure, high maintenance costs and the careful coordination of government and industry.
oh, wait...
The Emergency Broadcast System that interrupts TV programming in times of crisis... It will be similar to the TV alerts in that the text messages will be geographically targeted for areas where a tornado alert or major road closure, for example, is in effect."
I hope they peg down the geography a lot better. I'm sick of getting severe weather warnings from TV stations half a continent away.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
"This is a test of the local emergency cell phone text system. This is only a test. If this had been an actual emergency, hopefully you haven't disabled text alerts in the middle of the night after receiving all our obnoxious tests."
It sounds like this would be rendered largely moot by DOT plans to disable cell phones in cars.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
How is this any different from a mobile-specific reverse 911?
I'm hoping a channel for voice and text will go away, just give me a fast data connection and I'll pick my own services to use. In which case a better system for emergencies would be to disseminate EB messages over a couple different popular channels (facebook, skype, IM) and let people choose their own way to be contacted.
check out the Mp3 Garbler I built!
I'm curious as to how they plan to implement it, especially because some people do a lot of moving across the country. Will it be able to warn people who are vacationing (or on business trips, etc) of emergency alerts where they are, as opposed to back at home? The article mentions "geographical targeting," but gives no indication of whether this will be done with real-time information as opposed to phone registration data.
How long before this gets implemented in Canada and we get a EBS fee added onto our bills, along with the touch-tone dialling fee, 911 fee, etc.?
Umm, what? There's already cell broadcast messages already defined in the original GSM spec!
No need to reinvent the wheel!
These were planned to be used from emergency systems to location specific advertising. Anyone have any idea why it was never used for anything?
Bot Assisted Blogging
I hope once a month I get a long tone in the middle of a phone call and a robotic voice telling me this has been a test of the Emergency Broadcast System.
I want to be in a large, busy area like a crowded mall or a large outdoor event when one of these alerts gets sent out. For some reason, the thought of seeing almost everyone stop and reach for their cell phone at the same time just seems incredibly cool to me.
It seems like there is some kind of a alert or another on television about 60% of the time (the other 40% being ads, when a life-saving warning is obviously impossible).
Anyway, I can't say my watching experience is enhanced a week later, when I sit down to peruse the TiVo.
Yes, I can see that it is raining outside.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
I work indirectly for the Civil Defense in my state (disaster control). And I can say that the ability to be able to warn all people in a given area that they must seek shelter or where to seek help after a disaster are priceless.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
How long before the access control to this is subverted and nationwide penis enhancement texts start arriving?
I'll take 3 weeks after deployment.
After the VA Tech shootings, a lot of college campuses implemented an emergency alert system that includes text messages to students and employees. My campus is one of them. The system is not geographically-aware but rather subscription-based, and so far all I've received are test messages (they announce the tests by email a few days in advance), sometimes synchronized with on-campus sirens. But it seems to work.
.sig withheld by request
when the asteroid hits my house?
One of the common reasons that is given for having no earthquake alert system is that we can only predict an earth quake a matter of seconds in advance.
The idea of sending a text message to peoples cell phones, if done with some automated system, could potentially be used for this.
Though the question is how bogged down the cell networks would get, or if they'd have some sort of universal-packet where the cell-towers simply broadcast it to all phones, rather than targeting each phone individually.
Oh how modern. We've had that here in Europe for years.
-- Cheers!
This is of course information that the cell companies have for any call (it is how they triangulate where a distress call comes from), and it would make the most sense for something like that. If they instead decided it by area code (or even area code + exchange prefix), it would be really quite useless since people tend to be mobile with their cell phones and likely wouldn't be interested in a disaster that is thousands of miles away at that moment.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
and its been around for years, but nobody uses it. I think supporting it is compulsory for GSM phones but nobody ever seems to use it. Was originally intended to be used for this or to do traffic warnings.
They should change the background color on your phone to the new threat level. e.g. when the level changes from yellow to orange, your phone background becomes orange, immediately letting you know to take the appropriate action such as heading to Home Depot to stockpile duct tape and plastic sheeting. For extra credit the phone could provide you with directions to the nearest hardware store.
This scheme may conflict with *Amber* Alerts, however.
If I get a text about a giant tornado headed my way, do you honestly think I care if they charge me 20 cents for the "head's up"?
This system is called ETWS (Earthquake Tsunami Warning System in Release-8 networks, i.e. LTE and PWS in Release-9. It is being pushed mainly by Japanese cellular operators (NTT DoCoMo, etc) and is probably used already in Japan.
DO NOT WANT
About a month or two ago (maybe longer,i lose track) a company called "Nixie" put in service (with the city and county of Honolulu) a text and/or email alert service.
Story from local paper: http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/global/story.asp?s=12921149
No todo lo que es oro brilla
What if that tornado tiggers 5 + texts do you want pay $1 or more per storm? and lots more if are roaming text roaming can be $0.50+ per text.
OMG! A toradno iz comin. proced 2 teh nearest evacushun sheltr
I heard about this idea back in *1989* from a guy that was trying to get tornado warnings onto cell phones. The cell sites in the effected area are usually pretty well known, and if those sites are linked to phones, the phones gets a message. Easy, obvious, incredibly useful, SAVES LIVES!
And here we are still talking about implementing it 20+ years later!
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
I can see overloaded phone lines as everyone will be calling them back to figure out what they were actually saying.
"Hi I got your text, GT OT VCANO ERPT N 15 MIN TKE UR FAM N PTZ 2 HGHR GRND"
. .
Will we be able to choose custom ring tones for these alerts? I've got a few songs in mind already...
Tornado - "You Spin Me Round" by Dead or Alive
Earthquake - "Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC
Flash Flooding - "Waterfalls" by TLC
Atom Bomb - "Party in the USA" by Miley Cyrus
I'm actually working on the handset side of this, so I can answer some of the questions people have about it.
It's really not that complicated of a system. It uses Cell Broadcast Services (CBS) which are part of the existing 3GPP and 3GPP2 standards. Some of you may have seen CBS applications in your phones, but they're typically not used in the U.S. CBS is, as its name implies, a broadcast service.. so obviously it's one-way only. If your phone isn't "subscribed" to the particular message identifier (a kind of topic or category), or your phone isn't on when the message is broadcast, you'll miss it. The system has different classifications for messages, from nationwide alerts, to local alerts (like hurricanes), to AMBER alerts. There can't really be any way for operators to charge for broadcast messages, any more than they can charge for other broadcast resources like paging channels, so I think the only way your bill would be affected would be if they do some blanket 10 cent "government" fee for everyone... By the way, the reason they are using CBS is because it does not place a strain on the network, like sending millions of SMS messages at once would (that's important in a disaster situation when people might be overloading the network).
The special handling on the handset side is to take some specific actions when an emergency message is received.. it has to play a special tone and vibration, among other things. You can opt-out of pretty much all messages, so don't get too worried about being woken up in the middle of the night for AMBER alerts (well, unless you want to receive them). The system supports a monthly test message, but you wouldn't be opted-in to those by default.
The nature of the cell network allows operators to broadcast the messages to specific cells, so you are not going to get alerts for things happening elsewhere in the country. But the design also allows for national (presidential-level) distribution, so yes, in those cases, everybody would get the alert. The network-side of things is more interesting than the handset side, because of how different levels of the government need to be able to send alerts, and this is mostly what the article talks about (although it's short on details).
If you have other questions, reply and I can try to answer them.
What if you're charged a mandatory $5 per month fee to get alerts *if* there is a storm.
I can imagine this being useful for tornado warnings, but please not for closed roads.
Also there are messages that will show up on your screen and not as just 'incoming message'. At least I was able to send/receive those several years ago when using my PC and the Nokia software.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
"The Internet protocol (IP) addresses in this block are in the 44.0.0.0/8 network and are available to any licensed amateur radio operator. The assigning of addresses is done by volunteer coordinators. These addresses are routable over the Internet."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMPRNet
Actually, in an area with multiple counties you would see an alert for each county. The alerts can vary depending on if they are a watch or warning. Typically, a storm alert with heavy rains will also insight alerts for different types of alerts (such as hail, flooding, ice, etc). Now, toss in the required weekly alerts and this could generate a fairly large number of messages.
All in all, if you are a re-distribution point which covers multiple counties there can be upwards of 30 to 40 entries for a small storm which can keep the equipment buzzing for a while.
I do not miss dealing with EAS systems at all...
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Do I get to register preferences about what messages I will want to receive, or will some wanker with authority decide that for me? The last thing I want is for the person who decides which messages are important being of the same mindset as the nimrod who thought passengers at an airport need to be reminded every 5 minutes exactly what the list of banned items on airplanes are - again and again and again and again while you wait for your flight. (What's really dumb about that recorded TSA message is that it interrupts other PA messages that are NOT repetitive and thus should have higher priority. What's more important - the message that is identical to the one you heard 5 minutes ago and will hear again 5 minutes from now, or the message that's unique and you'll only hear once? You should never stifle the one-off message with the repeated one, and yet that's what airports do. (I just returned from a trip where I heard my name on the PA trying to tell me something and it got interrupted like this and I never found out what it was about until it was too late. It turns out I had gotten a standby slot on a flight, but missed the chance because the PA system was designed by morons who think recorded repeated messages take precedence.))
Anyway, I don't want the same sort of moron deciding what messages come to my phone (or worse yet, which ones are allowed to interrupt a phone call) without my say-so.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Is that what they're calling it nowadays? What exactly WERE they doing?
how will i tell the difference between a real broadcast and a robodialer?
Wow. that will be quite annoying when I'm a passenger trying to make a call from a taxicab on my way to a meeting.
Reply to That ||
The only time the US was actually under attack, they didn't use it. Other news sources are far faster and more efficient. Like my local paper that allows me to subscribe to SMS cell-phone updates.
See the WikiPedia article for more information on why national EBS is near useless: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_broadcast_system
I'm pretty sure that no network has any single tower that covers multiple counties. As other posters have pointed out, these alerts would likely be handled at the tower level. Thus, it is unlikely that your phone would receive 30 alerts for one small storm.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
...of the emergency broadcast system.
this got introduced in Australia (at least Victoria) after the bushfires nearly 2 years ago.
would have been better before the fires, but nm.
it doesn't cost the user anything, costs a trivial amount to the gov't (when you take into account the running around they have to do before sending the warning, the cost of actually sending it is not bad), and it hasn't been abused so far.
basically you get (or maybe not, or maybe you get it hours late) a message saying "WARNING. EXTREME WEATHER ALERT AT 8PM. STAY INDOORS" or something of the kind.
i think only 1 warning was sent when there were some very hot gale force winds in the city. it was probably more as a test than anything.
they didn't send one when the bowling ball sized hail smashed all our cars up though.
So, will it also warn me that by reading the ever urgent disaster warning about the catastrophic road failure while driving will then cause another catastrophe?
Anyone want to start a pool on how long it will take someone to crack the system and start sending bogus alerts?
I have this at my University. If you so choose to provide your telephone number to the online database, you will receive a text. This is helpful is helpful during tornado warnings or other emergency situations. It is not often used, but it is comforting to know that if something were to occur at a time that I didn't have computer or television access, I would receive the alert immediately.
http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/service/safety/areamail/about(Japanese)
http://www.itmedia.co.jp/news/articles/1009/29/news093.html(Japanese)
Japan Meteorological Agency issues alerts to large companies, public transportations and cellphone carriers via dedicated networks. It's working quite well - trains make emergency stop, phones and speakers screams out, and you'll even have a time to make your last tweet before the disaster will hit you!
... except for those of us with a technophobe phone
You have a sick, twisted mind. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
I thought the push message functionality does and is for exactly this?
Not having a television, I have only seen "amber alerts" on highway signs telling me to look for license plate numbers, so presumably they are looking for stolen cars?
If cell phones cost money to call -- and widely varying costs at that -- how would I, the caller, know whether I am having to call someone, or how much the call would cost? That is why the costs reside entirely with the recipient.
Actually, originating from a tri-state area I can assure you that it is entirely possible for a tower to cross multiple counties.
Having dealt with EAS and depending on the configuration there can be several alerts.
At no point did I say a phone would receive 30 alerts, but it would generally be more then 5 for inclement weather.
Typically, there is a great deal of filtering that happens after a re-distributed signal is received. Depending on the configuration there can be a lot of clutter that isn't necessary required, but could be potentially passed on.
You can refute my claims all you want, but they are based actual experience in a real environment.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
As important as major road closures and tornadoes are, it is illegal to text and drive at the same time where I live. Thank you, government, for forcing me to either break the law, or drive on closed roads and fly around in tornadoes.
I am constantly miffed by annoying tests that interrupt programs. Now a test will go nuts in movies, school, church and gosh knows what and at what hour.
If it is going to be important the alert for say a tornado MUST be loud as heck. But how the heck can the phone tell a test from a real alarm.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
vast flocks of sheeple. What could possibly go wrong?
I can send anyone on Earth a SMS with any 14 char numeric or 11 char alphanumberic sender within seconds. Forging this is easier than faking Caller ID via our Asterisk.
If you want to worry then you can worry about a non-service provider controlled cell tower spewing out broadcast text messages. Think what a Sanford Wallace could do with that. There was a slashdot article a while ago about a home brewed GSM cell tower. If it can handle calls it probably could send these broadcast texts messages too. The FCC CMAS website is here: http://www.fcc.gov/pshs/services/cmas.html
Good question. The broadcast message contains more in it than just the text, see for example 3GPP TS 23.041. The phones use the message identifier field to decide what cadence to use when handling different types of broadcast messages.
Well, every place else I am aware of has dedicated "area codes" or prefixes
for mobile phone numbers, so you know just by looking at the phone number.
Not binding a mobile phone to a location-specific code seems the sensible
thing to do, but it's probably too late to introduce this in the US.
Given this, I can understand why things are as they are.
I can still be annoyed by it though.
Phone companies spam me every day with their promotional broadcasting. I can't believe they're taking so long to use all that for something actually useful.
Cool! I've wondered a number of times why they don't already do this. SMS is suited for it from an architectual standpoint.
Now we can get SMSs saying "the trees are on fire!" just like we do for SNMP traps on our servers.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Because the number you are dialing is a mobile number. The US is unusual in that its cell numbers look like 'normal' numbers. Which is kinda weird if you think about it, since 'mobiles' are, well, mobile, and not tied to a particular area.
In most places, you can clearly distinguish a mobile number from other numbers. Either:
- Mobile numbers are shorter or longer than landlines; or
- Mobiles have their own area code. For instance in Australia, a number with the 04 'area code' is a mobile number and charged accordingly.
Civil Defense sirens in neighborhoods are still the best way to tell people to turn on their radio/TV/etc. to find out what the alert is for. So few people listen to radios, the Emergency Broadcast system becomes less and less effective.
If you are watching TV over internet, listening to your iPod, or XM/Sirius, odds are you won't find out about the emergency alerts in a timely manner. A gneeric signal that tells people to switch to local broadcasts would be more effective.
Then again, most of the alerts my city gets are Amber Alerts, which 9 times out of 10 are custody disputes, with no danger to the child. You start to ignore the messages, when they send so many.