Engineering...Beyond the Classroom

Now here's a stupid idea. Lets replace a working, reliable safety warning system with an unproven safety system because it's new. Instead at each plausible location for this upgrade, both systems should exist for at least a testing period. The texting system can be easily tested during this time to see how many people get emergency messages.

If you been to Paris you hear police sirens all the time. What are they doing over there?

This would be a good idea, but for two issues. 1.) The cost of givine the receiver to everyone living in the city (One per person, not just one per family.) Then add in the number that would be lost each year. I know people that can loose a cell phone in a few weeks. 2.) Not everyone in the area is a resident of the city. Non residents would not receive the message.

The speed of this system is a concern to me, namely the phrase "receives a text message in seconds..." If this is an addon to phones using current cellphone systems, then it would reach the reciever in the time it would take a normal text to come through.

With many areas having unreliable cell phone coverage, or slow providers with messages banked up, i have heard cases of messages taking as long as a day to reach such people. In many cases this would be too late a warning.

The only way this system should be used, is in conjunction with current early warning systems. One should not assume that the message will be recieved by all who need it.

Neat idea but I'm not sure about using it in life & death circumstances. I see in the article that these are in a test phase so maybe some of the questions will be addressed. It (the article) doesn't say, but wouldn't you also need to provide texting in different languages and/or dialects?

Logan

I receive emergency warnings & amber alerts on my phone. But I had to sign up for them.

But I don't think this should be the only way to do it. What about the people that don't have cell phones?

I currently don't for instance. We got rid of ours due to cost. Its a luxury we can do without right now. We have a home phone. And my mother doesn't have one either. We tried to get her to use one but she just couldn't get used to them.