Parts of the UK will soon be testing a mobile phone based emergency alert system to see how the general public responds to the messages.
The trials will take place in Easingwold in North Yorkshire, Leiston in Suffolk, and Glasgow city centre and will see up to 50,000 people receive test emergency messages, according to the BBC. The trials, starting this month, are being run by the government with help from mobile networks EE, Vodafone and o2.
Emergency alert systems are used to transmit information about local risks and emergency situations like flooding or an industrial accident that could pose a threat to an uninformed populous. The trial will contain two tests: one using a traditional SMS message, and one using Cell Broadcast (CB) which uses a separate network altogether.
➤ Mobile phone emergency system to be tested in the UK [BBC]
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