[LINK] No cash for phone alert system

[Tom Worthington]

At 12:22 PM 16/02/2009, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>No cash for phone alert system Jamie Walker and Natasha Bita
>February 16, 2009 Australian IT
>http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25060102-15306,00.html
>
>The federal Government spent $60 million on early warning for tidal
>waves over the past four years, while cheaper phone alert systems for
>bushfires and floods went unfunded. ...

Most of the money for the Australian Tsunami Warning System (ATWS) 
was for detection, not to warn the public 
<http://www.bom.gov.au/tsunami/>. There is no public tsunami warning 
system for Australia, in the sense is being discussed for bushfires. 
As with Tsunami, for a warning system to be effective, there has to 
be a system which can detect and predict the danger so that a useful 
warning can be given.

>NSW Emergency Services Minister Steve Whan said early warning 
>systems had to be tailored to meet the needs of different 
>communities and hazards. "I am advised that each jurisdiction is 
>working on the most appropriate early warning systems for their 
>communities," he said. ...

It would be a good idea for Australia to first build one relatively 
cheap and quick general purpose warning system and then worry about 
customization for different communities.

At the same time whoever is looking at the National Broadband Network 
for the federal government, should raise the priority of the 
requirement for emergency call services, as at present it is 16 out 
of 18. It would be unfortunate if one part of the government was 
spending money building a warning system based on the public switched 
telephone network and another part of the government was making that 
network obsolete.

>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. ...

Very easy point to unstick: It is a simple matter to write the 
requirement for emergency access into the Telecommunications Act. 
Provided all the telcos have to do it, I doubt they will grumble too 
much. At a working level their technical staff would cooperate to 
build the system.

The Act already contains provision for the telcos to be required to 
provide services in an emergency. As part of preparations for Y2K 
at  the Defence Department in 1999, I found we just needed a letter 
from the Minister to tell Telstra, Optus and others that it was an 
emergency and we wanted them to do.

At 12:35 PM 16/02/2009, Richard Chirgwin wrote:

>To include mobiles, such a system would need to know which mobiles were
>logged in at which locations. ...

A text message could be sent to all the mobile phones in an area 
using "Cell Broadcast". This sends a text message similar to SMS to 
all the phones using a particular cell tower. The technology is 
intended for sending such emergency messages.

ps: You may recall we had this discussion in September 2008, about 
tsunami warnings: 
<http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/2008-September/079367.html>.



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