FCC Approves Emergency Mobile-Device Text Alerts
(NewsFactor)
- Text messaging on mobile devices has grown from banter between teenagers to a new emergency notification system for cell phones, as approved Wednesday by the Federal Communications Commission.
The FCC said the new rules “support the ability of the nation’s wireless carriers to transmit timely and accurate alerts, warnings and critical information to the cell phones and other mobile devices of consumers during disasters or other emergencies.” The policy meets the requirements of the federal Warning, Alert and Response Network Act, whose acronym is, appropriately, WARN.
Levels of Emergency Messages
When fully operational, the Commercial Mobile Alert System, or CMAS, will be able to deliver alerts to participating wireless services. Those carriers will forward text-based alerts to their subscribers, and the FCC said that, as technology evolves for greater bandwidth, CMAS may some day include audio and video emergency messages as well.
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