Should Netflix and Hulu give you emergency alerts?

Mon Mar 11 17:53:47 UTC 2019

On Mon, 11 Mar 2019, William Herrin wrote:
> My cell phone woke me up in the middle of the night during a recent landline
> outage because the county felt the need to let me know that I wouldn't be
> able to call 911 if, you know, I happened to need to call 911. Thanks guys.
> Thanks a lot. And I can't block their messages. That's a problem.

1. VOIP, telcos and network operators have recurring 9-1-1 issues.  There 
has been multiple, multi-state 9-1-1 outages in the last few years. VOIP, 
telcos and network operators don't seem to have coherent plans how to 
handle multi-state 9-1-1 outages.  Don't worry, the FCC has their "best 
people" looking into it, again.

2. Because that was something "that will never happen," there was no plan 
how to alert cellular subscribers.  In fact, the "TOE," Telephone Outage 
Emergency code for 9-1-1 outages is blocked from WEA cell phones.

3. Since there is no multi-state plan and the official emergency alert 
code, TOE, is blocked from WEA; county emergency managers overrode the 
emergency alert system and used the "extreme alert" message instead.

Can you spot the multiple planning and operating flaws?

=======================

In the U.S., you can always block all state/local emergency alerts, 
including "extreme alerts," on your cell phone. The downside is that 
opts-out of *ALL* state, local, weather, etc. emergency alerts, except 
national/presidential emergencies.

Canada doesn't allow opting out of emergency alerts by cellular 
subscribers.

I proposed to the FCC a less severe alert settings for informational 
advisories, which wouldn't set off the WEA alarm on your cell phone. But 
the message would appear, semi-unobtrusively.

BTW, it would make more sense for VOIP and Telco 9-1-1 operators to have a 
plan to notify people at the time they dial 9-1-1 it isn't working. But 
since 9-1-1 "never fails," they don't seem to want to have a plan.