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Emergency Alert Notification System Might Come to Your Cell Phone

It's a staple of television watching or radio listening. The interrupted program, piercing noises and an announcement that says, “This is a test of the emergency broadcast system,” is familiar to any American who watches television or listens to the radio. (In actuality, the Emergency Broadcast System was ended in 1997; it was replaced by the more multimedia Emergency Alert System.)You may even have a few recollections of real (not tests) activations of the system, perhaps for impending storms. So why doesn't the emergency alert system reach us on our cell phones?

The good news is that very soon, it might.

The Federal Communication Commission (FCC (News - Alert)) and telecom company Alcatel-Lucent are reportedly working together to create what's being called the Commercial Mobile Alert System, which would send alerts when the emergency broadcast system is activated, to your cell phone in text form. The alerts could be about any number of things: tornadoes, blizzards, floods or terrorist attacks.

The new system, if it comes to fruition, would allow government agencies to send alerts to phones in the geographic area affected, whether across a few blocks or across the country. For those with visual and hearing impairments, the texts would include vibrations and audio signals. Under the proposed system, all phones would receive the emergency alerts directly from the U.S. government about terrorist attacks or natural disasters, but phone users will be able to opt out of receiving local warnings about weather, traffic accidents or Amber Alerts.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the system, which is expected to begin operating in early 2012, is in the advanced testing stages. Sprint (News - Alert) tried it out with the California Emergency Management Agency in San Diego over the summer. A pilot run was conducted recently in Tampa, Fla.

Tracey Schelmetic is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Tracey's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Tammy Wolf