The Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) has been used in DC. Not familiar with CMAS? It is a private-public partnership between the federal government and commercial cell phone carriers to send text message style alerts with important notifications that is prioritized over normal voice and data services to people based on their location (as determined by what cell phone tower they are connected to). From the FEMA website:
CMAS Live in DC: 7:35 PM 7/18/12
CMAS allows public safety authorities to use FEMA’s IPAWS Open Platform for Emergency Networks (IPAWS-OPEN) to send geographically targeted, text-like Wireless Emergency Alerts to the public. WEAs will relay Presidential, AMBER, and Imminent Threat alerts to mobile phones using cell broadcast technology that will not get backlogged during times of emergency when wireless voice and data services are highly congested.
Interestingly, DC is not an approved Alerting Authority yet so the fact that I saw this message yesterday is unexpected. (Update: Page taken down. Copy of Google Web Cache of previously referenced page here.) Screenshots from my girlfriend‘s phone are shown. It came in yesterday at 5 PM while a block from the Farragut North Metro station. The phone is a Motorola Droid Pro on Verizon. The message was regarding a flash flood warning to be in effect until 7 PM.
There are three different kinds of alerts one can receive:
- Presidential Alerts – Alerts issued by the President or a designee
- Imminent Threat Alerts – Alerts that include severe man-made or natural disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc., where an imminent threat to life or property exists
- AMBER Alerts – Alerts that meet the U.S. Department of Justice’s criteria to help law enforcement search for and locate an abducted child
National Weather Service Flash Flood Warning
There’s actually been quite a bit of back-end work necessary to get this going. Carriers had to agree to upgrade their systems so they can pass along the messages; those that did not — usually smaller carriers where the cost would be prohibitive — are required to notify their customers that they won’t get them. Carriers cannot opt out of sending the Presidential broadcasts though.
There has been some controversy over the usefulness of CMAS. The 90 character limit is barely more than half of a Twitter message (140 characters) or SMS text message (160 characters), so the specificity of the warning and suggested course of action is likely to be limited. Ultimately, this limitation is a result of two factors: first, the need to support all phones and second, the priority of SMS-style messages.
To support all phones and not just smartphones (where data plans and fast data speeds would allow for more information to be conveyed), the technology has to utilize the lowest common denominator: text messaging. Every phone made in the past decade, no matter how basic, has text messaging capability. Not every phone has a data connection or the software necessary to display longer messages.
The original reason for the character cap on SMS was to limit its length to the size of a potentially unused network packet that gets sent back and forth between phones and towers. While technically not an SMS/”text message,” the CMAS alert follows the same principle. In a time of crisis, that packet size will be significantly easier to transmit during decreased capacity (if some towers go offline) and increased load (everyone is calling/texting/emailing friends and family) and receive increased priority in transmission. For more information, see this Cell Broadcast article. (Ironically, for years now Cell Broadcast has been featured rather prominently on my phone when I insert a European SIM card while traveling abroad.)
Different alert from a coworker’s phone the next day
Ultimately, despite the limitations, it is arguably better to have some warning and direction rather than none at all. The service is still rather nascent in the United States and has lots of room to improve (e.g. sending multiple pages of messages). Moreover, completing initial development of the system getting the agreements complete is half the battle. From here, CMAS can improve on itself to provide better warnings to the public and complement the Emergency Alert System as well as other services in notifying the public of important announcements.
Lastly, want to make sure your new phone is CMAS ready? Check for this label:
Update #1 7/20/12 3:05 PM: The CMAS website must have gotten a lot of hits after Wednesday, specifically to the page that says DC is not an approved publishing authority. According to this updated page, it now is.
Update #2 7/20/12 3:25 PM: It was pointed out that while the message was received in DC, the National Weather Service (NWS) was actually the publisher and they have publishing authority to the entire nation. Thus, DC’s previously in-process publishing authority would be a non-issue for the messages shown above.
