Why do people purchase mobile phones?

 

Whether for personal or professional use, the reasons generally boil down to the need for anytime, anywhere access to communications. Cutting tethers to the landline helps companies grow their mobile workforce while freeing consumers to travel more. It also gives users the option to make emergency calls.

 

But it’s unlikely that anyone purchased a mobile phone thinking they could use it to receive emergency alerts about tornadoes or an avian flu outbreak. Ironically, text messaging’s global popularity and adoption make it probably the most effective tool for warning large groups of people about public crises.

 

However, most mobile operators haven’t figured how to use their existing infrastructures to send high-priority alerts to subscribers without spending a lot of time and money on additional IT resources such as capacity. In fact, mobile operators do have the capacity for quickly and efficiently sending emergency short message service (SMS) text messages to thousands of subscribers as a public safety alert. They can also use readily available elements to locate subscribers in the network and create group lists to ensure alerts are sent to the right people.

 

To follow is an explanation of how mobile operators can use a tiered architecture, transforming their existing infrastructure elements, to create a safety-text-net emergency alert service. Doing so fulfills a moral responsibility to promote public safety in times of crisis, and strengthens customer relationships.

 

The most compelling argument for using text messaging as an effective broadcast mechanism is its widespread adoption. The number of text messages sent globally is expected to more than double from 936 billion in 2005 to 2.3 trillion in 2010, according to a report from industry analyst firm Gartner (News - Alert). Total revenues from text messaging are also expected to nearly double from $39.5 billion in 2005 to $72.5 billion in 2010.

 

While SMS is growing steadily, between six and nine percent in developed markets, it is experiencing double-digit growth elsewhere. According to industry analyst firm Market Intelligence Center (MIC), the number of worldwide mobile phone subscribers is expected to grow from two billion in 2005 to approximately 3.3 billion in 2010.

 

So the baseline alert devices, the mobile phones, are broadly available. The question is what do mobile operators need to do to broadcast the message?

 

Regardless of the nature of the alert, mobile operators need to be able to quickly draft the message, target the recipients and send it so that it arrives in time for subscribers to react.

 

One way to do this is via global system for mobile (GSM) communications networks. Cell broadcast is an existing but rarely-used function of GSM networks and is defined by the official standardization bodies of GSM. Cell broadcasting allows messages to be broadcast to all mobile handsets in a given geographical cellular area. This area can range from one that is covered by a single cell to the entire network. Unlike bulk SMS, cell broadcast works by targeting particular cells without prior knowledge of mobile telephone numbers. Cell broadcasting places a very low load on the network — a cell broadcast to every subscriber on the network is equivalent to sending an SMS message to a single phone.

 

However, GSM has not been adopted globally — including in the U.S., so cell broadcasting is only limited to the areas where GSM networks are in use.

 

But every mobile operator in the world already has the capacity in place to reach each of its known subscribers via SMS, regardless of the network standard it uses. Locating subscribers via cells and sectors is achievable using standardized elements that already exist in today’s networks. Operators can readily create group lists for targeted environments or other segments of the population using standard, off-the-shelf elements that can be easily and inexpensively incorporated into the existing messaging infrastructure.

 

From a political perspective, the public will need assurances that only bona fide sources, such as police and fire departments, county officials or university administrators, are permitted access to the system in order to initiate an emergency message. Mobile operators also need assurances that they are not liable for the content of the messages but merely for the expedient transport of the message to the target list of recipients.

 

From a technical perspective, to build such a solution, operators do not need to reinvent their messaging network. The basic capabilities are likely to be represented in the current messaging infrastructure provided to them by their messaging vendor. From a requirements perspective operators need the ability to:

 

 

Accomplishing these tasks requires a flexible, tiered architecture that lets mobile operators quickly launch new services such as emergency alerts. These tiers would include: storage, access and delivery, control, and applications. This type of tiered architecture streamlines infrastructure management, accelerates new service deployment, and reduces capital and operating expense associated with scaling the infrastructure to meet growth. In the case of emergency alerts, this Mobile Messaging 2.0-ready architecture will enable mobile operators to quickly and easily create group lists, prioritize traffic, burst traffic and quickly locate subscribers.

 

Your mobile phone has the potential for one more, potentially lifesaving use: an emergency public service alert. Mobile operators have the capability within their grasps. All they need is to start planning so they can capitalize on their existing investments, be ready to perform a significant public service and strengthen subscriber loyalty.