FCC Pushes Forward Emergency Text Alerts
By Staska on 11 Apr 08The good folks at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) want you to know you and your mobile phones are on their minds as they adopt rules to deliver alerts to you during emergencies. These alerts would come in the form of text messages warning you Armageddon is upon us.
The New York Times reports this plan is the result of the Warning Alert and Response Act, a federal law from a few years ago which states the emergency alert system needed to be upgraded to better alert people like you and I to emergencies. The new Commercial Mobile Alert System, as the FCC calls it, will “transmit text-based alerts to wireless carriers who choose to participate.
Most major wireless carriers have signed on for this, reports PC Magazine, including Verizon, Sprint and AT&T. The alerts themselves will be broken up into several categories, including national emergency-related alerts, imminent threat alerts and child abduction related alerts.
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