Sprint/FEMA/FCC
By Suzanne Choney
Sprint will start allowing free, wireless emergency alerts?? text messages from the National Weather Service, state and local emergency operations center, even the President?? becoming the first U.S. carrier to do so.
By the end of the year, Sprint will test the alerts in New York City, in conjunction with the city's Office of Emergency Management, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"We look forward to testing this critical service in a city that is the epicenter of our nation?s financial, media and fashion markets," said Steve Elfman, Sprint president of network operations and wholesale, in a press release.
"During the next year, Sprint will continue working with FEMA, DHS, and numerous state and local emergency agencies to successfully make the alerts available nationwide," the company said.
The alerts are part of the federal Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS), a major components of the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) system being developed by FEMA and the Federal Communications Commission.
The text alerts could be issued for a wide range of emergencies, from those that are weather-related in your area (tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, wildfires), to warning students on a campus that may have just been put on lockdown because of a threat.
Other examples cited by Sprint:
An emergency message could be targeted to cell phones at a stadium event, informing attendees of where to go or what direction to drive following a nearby highway accident or chemical spill.
If a suspicious package were reported in an airport, shopping mall or office complex, thousands could receive messages to move to a certain area until the threat was removed.
"Wireless users can opt out of all message types with the exception of presidential alerts," Sprint said.
For now, several, but not all, Sprint devices will be able to get the alerts; the iPhone is not on the list, but among the phones that are: the HTC Evo Design 4G, HTC Evo 3D, Samsung Galaxy SII and the Epic4G Touch.
The alerts are "delivered at no charge to the customer and have a distinctive vibration cadence and audio tone similar to what is heard for emergency alerts on broadcast television and radio," Sprint said.
Testing, it is hoped, will go better than last week's national exercise by FEMA of the Emergency Alert System on TV and radio, when some reported hearing a Lady Gaga song played through the test period.
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