In the next few years, it's highly likely that local emergency managers and other public safety officials will be able to activate a cell broadcast that will deliver emergency notifications to many cell phones in the area. The new capability will come through the Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) being developed by FEMA, the FCC, and cell carriers. (See our recent posts here and here.) Projected launch: 2012.
Meantime, successful telephone alerts and notifications are reliant upon collecting good telephone data...emphasis on the "good". There's a wide range of collection efforts beginning with simply buying a "phone book" database to a "managed" approach. The best managed approaches we've seen involve "9-1-1" data supplemented by phone book data supplemented by citizen registrations supplemented by a process that regularly updates data from multiple sources.
A new white paper from InfoCode shows a significant disparity between the phone book data and, well, reality...not only through missing numbers, but in accuracy of info used to associate numbers with proper points on a map. The company conducted a sampling of several areas, and found phone book numbers were plotted 3, even 5, miles from their real location. (Not good in an emergency.) This occurred in 10% of their samples. Then, of course, there's a significant number of numbers that don't show up in the phone books...even before you take into consideration cell numbers that don't show up anywhere. The InfoCode white paper can be found here. (In the interest of full disclosure, we advised InfoCode on the paper.)
There are many telephone notification systems across the country that use phone book data only, and no doubt, this is better than nothing. But, as the public expects more information faster, phone book data alone just won't cut it anymore. There are certainly steps that can be taken to get much better notification data. Most importantly, it takes an organization willing to make the investment of resources to do it right.
It's kind of like Lorin's recent post on public outreach (Doing it Right: Engaging Citizens in a Notification Program), and our repeated posts on a systems-of-systems approach. This is not simple stuff. Being prepared to notify and alert the public is no small undertaking, and getting more complex every day. Let's understand the complexities, educate the people with the purse-strings, and address the complexities head on.
All the best,
Rick
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Meantime, successful telephone alerts and notifications are reliant upon collecting good telephone data...emphasis on the "good". There's a wide range of collection efforts beginning with simply buying a "phone book" database to a "managed" approach. The best managed approaches we've seen involve "9-1-1" data supplemented by phone book data supplemented by citizen registrations supplemented by a process that regularly updates data from multiple sources.
A new white paper from InfoCode shows a significant disparity between the phone book data and, well, reality...not only through missing numbers, but in accuracy of info used to associate numbers with proper points on a map. The company conducted a sampling of several areas, and found phone book numbers were plotted 3, even 5, miles from their real location. (Not good in an emergency.) This occurred in 10% of their samples. Then, of course, there's a significant number of numbers that don't show up in the phone books...even before you take into consideration cell numbers that don't show up anywhere. The InfoCode white paper can be found here. (In the interest of full disclosure, we advised InfoCode on the paper.)
There are many telephone notification systems across the country that use phone book data only, and no doubt, this is better than nothing. But, as the public expects more information faster, phone book data alone just won't cut it anymore. There are certainly steps that can be taken to get much better notification data. Most importantly, it takes an organization willing to make the investment of resources to do it right.
It's kind of like Lorin's recent post on public outreach (Doing it Right: Engaging Citizens in a Notification Program), and our repeated posts on a systems-of-systems approach. This is not simple stuff. Being prepared to notify and alert the public is no small undertaking, and getting more complex every day. Let's understand the complexities, educate the people with the purse-strings, and address the complexities head on.
All the best,
Rick
