[LINK] SMS - shortcomings in emergency services

[Tom Worthington]

At 08:04 AM 19/09/2008, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
>... 3G Americas has produced this white paper ... The conclusion, 
>that SMS is unsuited to emergency notification, doesn't surprise me.  ...

This is something already known in the emergency community. But it is 
good to have a scholarly work set out the issues in detail. As the 
paper says, some mobile phone standards have a "Cell Broadcast" 
facility built in for delivering messages quickly to all users, which 
is what is needed for emergency broadcasts: 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_Broadcast>.

SMS is useful for delivering emergency messages to select groups of 
relevant personnel, where the investment in a specialized network 
can't be justified. That is used in Sydney 
<http://www.sydneyalert.nsw.gov.au/content.php/36.html> and for 
places such as university campuses 
<http://www.google.com.au/search?&q=SMS+campus+alert+emergency++site%3Aedu.au>.

ps: I discussed the issue with the staff of the tsunami watch and 
earthquake center for the Eastern Mediterranean region, when I 
visited in May: 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/emergency_management/>. For 
earthquakes there is only a 5 to 20 second warning time, making SMS 
of marginal usefulness. It is a bit easier with Tsunami, which take 
tens of minutes in the Mediterranean.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University