[LINK] No cash for phone alert system

Richard Chirgwin rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au
Mon Feb 16 12:35:51 AEDT 2009


[big snip]
>
> It is understood that covering mobile phones remains a sticking point, 
> because it would require all telcos to set aside their own commercial 
> interests and provide general access to their networks and infrastructure.
>   
Thinking further, I suspect it involves more than commercial interests.

To include mobiles, such a system would need to know which mobiles were
logged in at which locations. Fine; the mobile networks do that anyhow;
but if the emergency contact system were to be centralised to one
contracting carrier, then those locations would need to be made
available to other carriers.

That falls under the heading of MoLI (mobile location indicator) which
is still a work-in-progress.

At the moment, though, MoLI focuses on what happens when the mobile
calls 000 - that is, "how do we pass location information across the
network boundary after the call is made?" Making it a proactive early
warning system is another beast entirely.

Offhand (and ignoring SMS options for the moment), the choices seem to be:
- Always pass location information from all mobiles on all networks to
the emergency locator, in case an emergency arises (not good).
- Establish a more ad-hoc system in which, should an emergency arise,
users logged into the affected base stations are notified to the
location database.

I really don't think this is merely a simple issue of commercial interests.

RC



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