And I suspect not a standard
in use or in sight. Please correct me if I am
wrong!
Carl
Coming Soon To Your Cell
Phone: Text Emergency Alerts
Page 1 of 2
The Homeland Security Department has begun updating
the Cold War-era Emergency Alert System following an executive order issued last
month by the White House. One of the new
requirements of the system is the capability to deliver messages based on an
individual's geographic location.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency conducted a series of tests earlier
this month with 24 public television stations across the country that showed how
they could use digital television broadcasts to disseminate public alerts to
traditional broadcast outlets as well as wireless devices, cable TV channels and
satellite radio.
In addition, a Federal Communications Commission meeting Aug. 3 is expected
to address the role of the wireless industry in the new alert system. Depending
on the final conclusions, cell phones and other wireless devices could become
the newest way for the government to deliver critical information after a
natural disaster, terrorist attack or even a serious traffic accident.
One company hoping to cash in on the new requirements is Manassas,
Virginia-based SquareLoop Inc., which has developed a location-based messaging
system for wireless devices.
In February and March, SquareLoop tested its system with the City of
Manassas, delivering messages - including evacuation information, Amber alerts
for missing children and traffic congestion updates to specific geographic
locations within city limits - to 30 volunteer emergency responders on their
Motorola and RIM Blackberry phones on the Sprint iDEN network.
Two things distinguish SquareLoop's technology, according to COO Joe Walsh.
Messages are delivered based on geographic location without physical tracking,
and they arrive with their own unique tone to differentiate them from other text
messages.
On top of that, SquareLoop can send messages in multiple languages and uses
text to speech conversion software to deliver a message to a disabled person as
an audio file - two requirements stated in last month's executive order by the
White House. The company also scrapped the 140-character limit to include more
information inside an alert.
Walsh insists SquareLoop is mindful of personal privacy because the company
doesn't track a person's location. Instead, it relies on an application
downloaded on the phone and the phone's wireless receiver to filter messages,
which contain a target location and time frame. The phone then determines if the
message applies.
"We don't need to know where someone is because we're pushing all that out to
the edge of the network, really out to the cell phone," Walsh says.
In response to a traffic accident or a biological agent release, SquareLoop
can send messages only to those people in the vicinity of the affected area,
even days afterward. Emergency response teams can designate, on mapping
software, the area in which a given message applies. For those outside that
location, the message is archived in case they enter it later.
"All messages have a lifespan," CEO Tom Stroup says about the alerts, which
can be sent via a Web-based interface or existing emergency management systems.
"If there's a toxic spill it may be a dangerous area for two hours, not just
affecting the people in the area at the time" of the spill.
SquareLoop got a boost in January when Morgan O'Brien, founder and former
chairman of Nextel Communications, was named chairman of its advisory board.
There are different kinds of location-based technologies, but what sets
SquareLoop apart is that it doesn't require any action on the part of the cell
phone user, says Matt Vartabedian, research manager at iGR, Inc.
"If your geography changes, you would not receive alerts for the area you
were not in," he says. In other words, people who live in Chicago wouldn't
receive alerts about an evacuation of the Sears Tower, for example, if they were
out of town for some reason.
That's not the case with other providers. Roam Secure, Inc. of Arlington,
Virginia, also sends text-based emergency alerts via text messages, but it does
not target an individual's location. The company's citizen warnings system, in
place in 18 jurisdictions in and around the District of Columbia as well as
Jefferson Davis Parish outside of New Orleans and the City and County of San
Francisco, sends out information based on the home address of a wireless device.
Roam Secure, whose alerts cover traffic, weather and other emergencies, also
operates systems specifically for first responder teams and for continuity of
operations for government agencies and businesses.
President Harry Truman established the first national alert system in 1951.
Its original purpose was to give the president a means to address the country in
case of a national emergency, but by 1963, the system also transmitted state and
local emergency information.
Since then, local emergency management personnel have used the EAS structure
to relay local emergency messages via broadcast stations, cable, and wireless
cable systems.
Earlier this month, FEMA distributed test messages over the Public
Broadcasting Service's satellite system to local public television stations
using a technology called datacasting, a one-way broadcast service that, when
combined with an existing high-speed network, can stream video or transmit large
files to thousands of locations simultaneously.
Public safety officials could use datacasting to pinpoint specific locations
to receive messages and they could also use it to distribute information over a
variety of media, such as cell phones, PDAs, pagers and computers. Datacasts are
transmitted through a digital television signal and a receiver hooked up to a
personal computer, laptop or computer network. The datacast receiver separates
the data bits from the television programming stream, allowing this data to be
manipulated and saved to any software program.
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