NEW YORK - the Government of the United States and the local authorities will soon reach people directly on their cell phones to warn them of impending danger or alerts on missing children - even in the middle of a widespread emergency overload of communication systemsas happened after the terrorist attacks of September 11, officials said Tuesday.
The emergency alert system will be used only for national messages critical of the President, information in potentially life-threatening situations and alerts Amber intended to broaden the search for the missing or abducted young, Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg announced Tuesday. He was accompanied by the President of the Federal Communications Commission Julius Genachowski and Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Craig Fugate.
The system of launch at the end of the year in the city of New York and Washington, D.C., will extend to most, if not all U.S. cell phones in the coming years as people replace their old phones with new devices containing a special chip that will allow them to receive messages. They will receive free alerts.
Each wireless carrier should participate, Genachowski said at a press conference over the site of the World Trade Center, which was attended by representatives of AT & T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon.
While carriers can allow cell phone users to opt out of receiving notifications of local officials and the Amber Alert, person should be allowed to withdraw receive presidential alerts.
Even users who turn off the coast of the GPS technology on their phones will receive the alerts, which will be sent to all users in the range of one or more rounds of cell phone selected by the authorities. Phones are turned off or are not any receipt do not receive messages.
In response to privacy concerns, Fugate said that no location or other information about phones is sent to the authorities.
Alert plan was approved by Congress in 2006 under the warning alert and response network Act. Private carriers has worked with manufacturers to provide phone chips. FEMA did not immediately respond to a request to find out if there were any charges of Government beyond the staff time.
If it had been available, the alert system could warned residents of two destructive tornadoes which struck the Brooklyn and Queens last year, killing a woman and causing considerable material damage, said Joe Bruno emergency management Commissioner. Bloomberg said officials will have to be aware of the sending of alerts in a way that would avoid mass panic.
In New York City, runners on subways - the target of speculation and terrorist several plots over the years - will not able to receive alerts, at least for now.
A handful of stations are planned to receive cell phone reception this year program pilot and the rest will be placed on the network over the next four years, said the spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Aaron Donovan. Until then, the riders will have to rely on sound systems stations and on trains.
It is a disappointment for Debbie Hayes, who said Tuesday that she was anxious in the Metro since the terrorist attacks of 11 September and for a long time after the attacks would call his son into the transit system.
"Every morning I get out of the subway and I am as"egg"" said 49-year old nanny, who said that she was very pleased with the idea to be able to alert on his phone when it is out and the city with 11 monthsshe cares about.
"He'll you faster that you see the news on television," she said. "It will be instant."
Some recent phone models already have the required chips, and software forthcoming updates will activate their. A list of phones that have the technology is available on the FCC website, Genachowski said.
Personal localized alert network, or PLAN, technology will allow messages to override regular phone calls or text messages, so in an emergency situation where the capacity of the system is overloaded, the alerts will always get throughthe officials said. Messages will be appear on the screen of the phone front, box letters of traditional text message and come with a separate ring and, probably, a vibration.
Gilberto Palma, a maintenance supervisor of 62 in a complex which was severely damaged in the attacks of September 11, the World Financial Center, think that the warning system was a good idea.
"Everyone will be happy, especially in this area," he said. "In this building from all over the world still in a State of alert."
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