EBS boldly enters 21st century, preparing SMS alerts
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Jul 13th 2006 5:48AM
posted Jul 13th 2006 5:48AM
Although the nuclear war for which it was designed thankfully never happened, the US' Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) soldiers on, occasionally interrupting our Wheel of Fortune viewing with disconcerting bloops and bleeps. FEMA, recognizing that the mobile phone now easily outstrips traditional media for reaching the uninformed masses in the event of a crisis, is finally turning to text messaging to give us a heads-up on air raids and the like. A system for distributing emergency text messages from the nation's digital TV stations to carrier networks has been in testing since 2004 and is getting ready for its public debut in the Gulf area by the end of the year, with rollouts in large cities nationwide thereafter. Apparently, the texts do little else but tell you to flip on your TV -- and you'll be able to opt out if you so choose -- but if we can track down that frighteningly dissonant EBS tone to use as our incoming message indicator, we're all for it.
The EBS was phased out in 1997. It's now the EAS (Emergency Alert System). EAS is more sophisticated, integrating data transmission capabilities which give much more details about event types and locations than the EBS "two-tones" ever could. The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) will further enhance the EAS enabling messages to be sent to cell phones, computers and more with a standard format.
Here in the Seattle area, we have the Regional Public Information Network (RPIN) for which you can register and receive emergency SMS or MMS messages. I signed up a year or so ago and it's been fairly effective. Sometimes, though, there are too many messages that are only relevant to a small population. I live in Seattle and have set my preferences that way, but still get messages about each local county's status. During a big storm, that's a lot of messages.
Great idea, but needs more refinement, as I'm sure will come with more experience.
Correction: RPIN uses email to reach your PC, PDA, mobile, etc. I happen to receive my messages on my mobile as SMS.