WASHINGTON-In a major development that could leverage political pressure to force mobile-phone carriers to make greater public-safety use of their networks, the first-ever demonstration of emergency wireless messaging went off without a hitch last week in Austin, Texas.
The private demonstration, attended last Wednesday by representatives from the Pentagon, Cingular Wireless L.L.C., the International Association of Emergency Managers, Nextel Communications Inc., the Texas Department of Public Safety, ABC and FOX TV affiliates and the BELO broadcast group, was accomplished without use of mobile-phone infrastructure. However, advocates are hopeful that mobile-phone firms will embrace the technology on their networks.
Entities that observed the field test, which will be followed up by a demonstration for the media on a yet-to-be-determined date, have yet to officially endorse the technology. However, the Department of Defense is said to be interested and one Pentagon official plans to contact the Commerce Department, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Federal Communications Commission and other government offices that turned down invitations to attend the event.
Meanwhile, a major wireless carrier has decided to conduct a 90-day trial in Austin and perhaps in other markets as a result of the successful demonstration. Last week’s test sought to highlight the potential for local emergency alerts that take advantage of cutting-edge wireless and information technologies so that citizens can be swiftly warned of such diverse emergencies as dangerous weather and natural disasters, chemical spills, missing children and domestic terrorism.
To date, the mobile-phone industry has resisted making emergency alerts, or reversed 911, available to the nation’s 115 million subscribers even though an industry standard exists and GSM networks are technically capable of providing such service today. Among the reasons industry has given in the past for opposing the technology are that it is too costly and there is not sufficient profit incentive. Industry also claims the marketplace will provide solutions.
“The decision whether or not to use this kind of technology should be left up to each individual carrier. In a competitive market, each business can decide if this is a service that their customers would like to use,” said a Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association spokesman.
Sources say there is industry pressure on GSM mobile-phone carriers, like VoiceStream Wireless Corp., not to offer wireless emergency alert service because to do so would force other carriers-which deploy other technologies-to follow suit. Because VoiceStream depends on other carriers for mobile roaming, according to sources, it may be reluctant to promote a highly attractive feature if it threatens business arrangements with others.
Because of industry recalcitrance, the Cellular Emergency Alert Services association decided to team up with Cell-Loc Inc., a Canadian wireless location software provider, and Sigma Communications Inc., a major U.S. supplier of landline Reverse 911 to deliver a variety of emergency alert messages to Cingular analog phones in four geographic locations in Austin.
Douglas Weiser, immediate past president of CEASA, said the Austin demonstration should put to rest arguments against offering emergency alert service via wireless technology.
“Some of the basic assumptions industry has had in location-based messaging I think need to be re-evaluated,” said Weiser. Weiser said there is no cost to mobile-phone carriers. Local TV stations could subsidize the cost of cell-alert service and promote it in exchange for having exclusive rights to be a given area’s official sponsor. He added that if cell alert service can be provided on rudimentary analog phones, it can be offered on today’s digital handsets and more sophisticated third-generation phones of the future.
Today’s half-century-old emergency alert system is based on a Cold War model, which emphasizes national over local and depends entirely on broadcast and cable TV technologies. Government reports issued during the Clinton administration encouraged incorporating wireless and information technologies into the nation’s emergency alert system.
Other reports issued by various think tanks have concluded coordination at the local, state and national levels is grossly lacking as America faces new, potentially lethal emerging threats, natural and man-made.
A key adviser to Vice President Cheney has indicated interest in wireless emergency alert technology. The vice president’s office did not return a call for comment. Cheney heads a working group that is developing coordinated national responses to chemical, biological or nuclear threats.
