Phone alert

[Peter Cobbold]

It didn't work.

Turns out the 3G network does not carry the signal.

And soon Vodafone will switch off our 3G, leaving only 2G. 

Such is 'progress'.

Peter

[Lebro]

Mine worked, but 15 mins after other folks, my wife's did nothing 

Bob

[RobH]

 

1 hour ago, Lebro said:

my wife's did nothing 

Not only does it require a 4G or 5G signal, it won't work on phones with oldish operating systems either.    

Not to worry -  in the nearly 75 years I have been around I cannot think of one instance where an alert of this type would have been useful*,  to me.  

 

* as opposed to causing widespread panic in the affected area.   It might be different if we still had a functioning Civil Defence organisation.........

 

 

Edited April 23, 2023 by RobH

[SuzanneH]

I’ve got 4G and I didn’t get it.

[iain]

Nope nothing in not even remote Devon……

[Hamish]

Didn’t work for me either. 
but I may have been having an old gits Kip ?

[Lebro]

Check your text messages, after the alarm, I noticed a messages had been left.  Make me wonder if the alarm was triggered using a SMS message ?

Bob

[RobH]

[JohnG]

It was fairly well advertised as 4G and 5G systems.

 

It was not at 15.00hr as advertised, but staggered over a spread of about 5 or 6 minutes, depending upon the carrier, for example if you are on O2 it was delivered at 14.58hr and Vodafone in theory 15.01hr.

Three are looking into why their customers didn't get the warning.

 

That's all folks

[RobH]

In the event of a real alert I will expect the following response from the public:

30% will heed the message.  A great many will start searching Twitter for more information or rumour, so overloading the phone network and the internet. 

30% will panic, jump into their cars and attempt to flee the area causing traffic chaos.

The remainder will grab their phones and go out to take selfies and make a video of the incident which they can upload to YouTube / TikTok . 

[JohnG]

1 hour ago, RobH said:

In the event of a real alert I will expect the following response from the public:

30% will heed the message.  A great many will start searching Twitter for more information or rumour, so overloading the phone network and the internet. 

30% will panic, jump into their cars and attempt to flee the area causing traffic chaos.

The remainder will grab their phones and go out to take selfies and make a video of the incident which they can upload to YouTube / TikTok . 

What about those of us who'll just ignore because, like gantry signs on the motorway, it'll be wrong

[Hawk]

My wife's went off at 259 yesterday and around 10am this morning.  Both times I was sat next to her and nothing!  

[john.r.davies]

Worked for me, at least there was a message about it on my phone, but I never heard it as I had left it at home!

My newspaper ( an old fashioned means of learning what is happening in the world, m'luds) says that the network "3" had a lot of failed alarms.

I am enormously sceptical of this - in the UK, we don't get events that would need us to run for the hills, like tsunamis, wildfire or earthquakes.  OK, the last aren't predictable, but what are they going to use it for?  Nuclear war?  Accident blocking the M6?   "There is a quite a queue in the second cash out at Tescos"?

John

[stillp]

We must be 'special'. Mine and my wife's both went off at precisely 3.00 pm. 4G Motorola on Tesco Mobile.

Pete

[JohnG]

18 minutes ago, john.r.davies said:

Worked for me, at least there was a message about it on my phone, but I never heard it as I had left it at home!

My newspaper ( an old fashioned means of learning what is happening in the world, m'luds) says that the network "3" had a lot of failed alarms.

I am enormously sceptical of this - in the UK, we don't get events that would need us to run for the hills, like tsunamis, wildfire or earthquakes.  OK, the last aren't predictable, but what are they going to use it for?  Nuclear war?  Accident blocking the M6?   "There is a quite a queue in the second cash out at Tescos"?

John

John, I have been firmly chastised on another forum for asking exactly that.

Why?

I was told;

That the rest of the world has it, so we need it

We need warning about storms, high tides, flooding.

 

Hmmm

Really

Nanny state methinks 

[saffrontr]

Nothing on my I Phone, but my wife's went off at 3.18pm. Must be one of the benefits of living in the countryside in Northumberland. So I guess if something major goes off like a nuclear bomb we'll both be long gone before we get the warning. It's not as if we have a cellar to hide in anyway!  

Derek

 

[Bleednipple]

3 hours ago, john.r.davies said:

Worked for me, at least there was a message about it on my phone, but I never heard it as I had left it at home!

My newspaper ( an old fashioned means of learning what is happening in the world, m'luds) says that the network "3" had a lot of failed alarms.

I am enormously sceptical of this - in the UK, we don't get events that would need us to run for the hills, like tsunamis, wildfire or earthquakes.  OK, the last aren't predictable, but what are they going to use it for?  Nuclear war?  Accident blocking the M6?   "There is a quite a queue in the second cash out at Tescos"?

John

Understand your point, UK isn't very disaster-prone, but on the other hand it's a pretty simple bit of tech to have as a standby. I think the most likely scenario in UK might be a sudden-onset airborne pollution incident. I remember the Buncefield in 2005, that one didn't involve a big chemical release but there are plenty of sites (including nuclear installations) across the UK that would pose a big health hazard at least locally if they went up.

I can well imagine the public uproar if there was such an incident, people got ill and/or died, and the govt hadn't bothered to enable and test this simple feature of GSM networks.

Nigel

[john.r.davies]

[Peter Cobbold]

1 hour ago, Bleednipple said:

Understand your point, UK isn't very disaster-prone, but on the other hand it's a pretty simple bit of tech to have as a standby. I think the most likely scenario in UK might be a sudden-onset airborne pollution incident. I remember the Buncefield in 2005, that one didn't involve a big chemical release but there are plenty of sites (including nuclear installations) across the UK that would pose a big health hazard at least locally if they went up.

I can well imagine the public uproar if there was such an incident, people got ill and/or died, and the govt hadn't bothered to enable and test this simple feature of GSM networks.

Nigel

On the other hand such is the dependence upon the nanny state, we can expect claims that " I was not alerted on my mobile to any danger, so drove into the floodwater and nearly drowned".   Personal perceptions of what is an emergency may not coincide with the 'authorities' definition, and they are not telling us that.

Peter

 

[Hawk]

4 hours ago, JohnG said:

John, I have been firmly chastised on another forum for asking exactly that.

Why?

I was told;

That the rest of the world has it, so we need it

We need warning about storms, high tides, flooding.

 

Hmmm

Really

Nanny state methinks 

I was (still am?) of a similar view to you but I do accept that there may be benefits.  For example if an alert can be issued quickly enough and targeted to certain phone masts something like "There is a nutter on the bridge with a knife" could be very useful.  

[john.r.davies]

Not the best example, I fear Hawk!     If I may change it to "with a brick"  (It has been done!) do you stop on the Motorway?   Worse, the man who stabbed and killed PC Keith Palmer outside the Houses of Parliament had just run down several of the public on Westminster Bridge.     The gallant PC would have still stood his ground, even if such an alarm had been issued, and there was no warning of the outrage.

John

[Tony_C]

This is why we need it…….

 

[Bleednipple]

[PodOne]

Got it at 3.20 so I guess I'd be dead! 

A telegram would have been faster.

Andy

[Kiwifrog]

On 4/24/2023 at 12:25 PM, john.r.davies said:

 

I am enormously sceptical of this - in the UK, we don't get events that would need us to run for the hills, like tsunamis, wildfire or earthquakes.  OK, the last aren't predictable, but what are they going to use it for?  Nuclear war?  Accident blocking the M6?   "There is a quite a queue in the second cash out at Tescos"?

John

A great way to create paranoia and control the great unwashed and give people another reason not to think or make decisions for themselves

We don't have it yet in France so we must be expendable