AT&T, Dish, and T-Mobile reveal some of the issues they faced when disseminating the government’s test of the Emergency Alert System.
Remember that loud piercing noise that came out of your smartphone’s speakers on October 4th? It was the government testing the National Wireless Alert System. You shouldn’t have been surprised by it because we told you to expect it more than a month before the test took place. The jarring alert revealed the location of phones hidden by some inmates in prisons and also led to the discovery of smartphones in Amish communities. The Amish are not allowed to own a modern piece of technology such as a smartphone.We assume that the inmates caught having a hidden phone ended up in trouble and possibly had their “stay” extended. Members of the Amish community who were hiding a phone ended up shunned, ignored, isolated, and ostracized. But the test also revealed a few other things that were discovered by wireless firms like AT&T, Dish Network, T-Mobile, and Verizon. The four wireless providers broadcast the national test to their customers.AT&T had 1,000 employees take part in a voluntary survey about the testing of the nationwide alert
For the most part, the four wireless providers said that everything went as expected during the test except for some fiber cuts that delayed the receipt of the alert in some areas. The four also noted that some Android devices had some problems receiving the test.
