Senators Call For Emergency Cell Phone Alert System

8 2,008

By Sara Peck and Priscilla Ybarra

With the increased availability of cell phones, email and PDAs, lawmakers have criticized the Department of Homeland Security for not keeping the current emergency response system in pace with the times.

President Bush — through an executive order — created the public alert and warning system in 2006 to notify citizens of terrorist attacks, natural disasters and other hazards. Messages will be transmitted through the airwaves via radio and television stations, as well as cable and satellite services.
Senators now want mobile phones to be added to the mix.

“I urge the department to review its protocols for mass communications,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “(It will) ensure that procedures are in place to convey life-saving information to as many people as possible through as many different forms of communications as possible when disaster strikes.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which supports the distribution of the urgent information, is working on systems to transmit mass messages to mobile phone service providers in the event of wide scale emergencies, Martha Rainville, assistant administrator of FEMA, said at the hearing.

However, mass messages may overwhelm cell phone service capacities, one expert told National Defense.

“The minute something happens people pick up their phones to call friends and family,” said Mike Hartnett, vice president of marketing and customer deployment at Global Relief Technologies — a company that provides emergency communications. “Most of the telephone companies become inoperable…everyone just gets a busy signal. The network capacity had been a challenge in events like 9/11.”

Most telephone companies have been designed to control a set number of calls at once. Current telephony infrastructure will be a challenge DHS must overcome before implementing a mobile phone alert system, said Hartnett.

Email this article

Print this article

Submit Your Reader's Comment Below

*Name
*eMail	The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
*Comments
	Please enter the text displayed in the image. The picture contains 6 characters. *Characters
*Legal Notice	NDIA is not responsible for screening, policing, editing, or monitoring your or another user's postings and encourages all of its users to use reasonable discretion and caution in evaluating or reviewing any posting. Moreover, and except as provided below with respect to NDIA's right and ability to delete or remove a posting (or any part thereof), NDIA does not endorse, oppose, or edit any opinion or information provided by you or another user and does not make any representation with respect to, nor does it endorse the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or reliability of any advice, opinion, statement, or other material displayed, uploaded, or distributed by you or any other user. Nevertheless, NDIA reserves the right to delete or take other action with respect to postings (or parts thereof) that NDIA believes in good faith violate this Legal Notice and/or are potentially harmful or unlawful. If you violate this Legal Notice, NDIA may, in its sole discretion, delete the unacceptable content from your posting, remove or delete the posting in its entirety, issue you a warning, and/or terminate your use of the NDIA site. Moreover, it is a policy of NDIA to take appropriate actions under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other applicable intellectual property laws. If you become aware of postings that violate these rules regarding acceptable behavior or content, you may contact NDIA at 703.522.1820. I have read the Legal Notice.