FEMA: don't worry about national SMS alert system, we gots it
by Chris Ziegler 
posted Jun 5th 2008 at 12:27AM
The FCC has already given its stamp of approval on a system to modernize the US' ages-old emergency broadcast infrastructure, relying largely on voluntary participation by the nation's wireless carriers to help get the word out to their subscribers in the event of a crisis. Left open, though, was the question of exactly who would be responsible for taking the reigns at the federal level, managing the system and overseeing alerts. After some initial concern that it didn't have the necessary legal authority to manage the system durning non-emergencies, FEMA has finally taken the bull by the horns and thrown its hat in the ring to get the infrastructure in place. The agency's first responsibility will be to develop and publish a protocol for the alerts -- something it hopes to have accomplished in the next one to two months -- with public availability of the production system coming in 12 to 18 months.
Filed under: Messaging
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Sandy @ Jun 5th 2008 7:54AM
Reins. No g. Thank you.
Also: Great. FEMA. At least messing around with texting isn't likely to allow them to kill people.
Big Sam @ Jun 5th 2008 8:59AM
If you thought your texts already showed up late... now with added FEMA (in)action!
Kumar @ Jun 5th 2008 12:01PM
Though it may not sound quite right, we'd all be better off if homeland security forced all of the wireless carriers to use the same frequencies. Then big fat gov could take over cell sites/ charge carriers for use/ and reduce the towers by half (no need for cdma).
Aside from the specter of big brother snooping, then we'd all be free to buy whatever phone we wanted and then carrier shop, so they could stop screwwwing us over if they knew we could take our phone with us.
Oh yeah, and it would also make it easier for emergency sms notifications, i.e., send a text to everyone in the cell radii in a county that's under a tornado warning, since we all know you can't hear the sirens over a storm and modern housing insulation.
dramamoose @ Jun 5th 2008 12:07PM
Aside from big brother concerns, then yes, you are correct. But I. for one, support anything that doesn't belong to the feds.
And even if they didn't own the sites/towers, the companies could still charge for service, not to mention the fact that those charges go to building and maintaining a cellphone network. Want an example? Compare any toll-based road to a public highway. Chances are that the toll road is going to be better maintained.
The last question I have: where exactly would congress's authority be here?
Seth A @ Jun 5th 2008 3:11PM
12 to 18 Months. Really? Seems like an awfully long time to me.
jtram79 @ Jun 14th 2008 12:00AM
Great, we're screwed. I wouldn't even let FEMA tell me if a mugger's coming up behind me.. They'd prolly get around to mentioning it at my cremation.