UNC steps up promotion of text messaging alerts

Alert Carolina is the primary emergency alert system for UNC, delivering thousands of texts in a matter of minutes.

And during emergencies, cell phone servers need to be able to manage thousands of phone calls and text messages at once.

The University first used its text messaging alert system when a shooting victim was found a few miles off campus. The victim turned out to be former Student Body President Eve Carson, raising alarm about on- and off-campus safety.

Since then, the University has been pushing students, faculty and staff to sign up for the alert notification, as well as moving forward with perfecting the siren alarm system.

The Federal Communications Commission also recently announced the development of the Commercial Mobile Alert System, which sends out alerts in the case of national emergencies, such as natural disasters, terrorist attacks or AMBER alerts.

This system is voluntary, and wireless providers can send them out to customers who are registered.

It is the responsibility of the wireless providers to ensure that the texts are sent in a timely fashion.

“During emergencies, Americans increasingly rely on wireless telecommunications services and devices to receive critical, time-sensitive information anywhere, anytime,” Robert Kenny, spokesman for the FCC, stated in a press release.

Text messages are smaller packages to send than phone calls and thus are easier to send, Kenny said.

Bruce Lee, manager of industry solutions for the public sector of Sprint, said the technology for sending a text needs to change so mass amounts of texts can be sent quickly.

He said when an emergency text message is sent to thousands of people now, the same message is sent out thousands of times.

“If we need to send an alert to many, many people at the same time, we know that there will be some capacity problems with everyone,” Lee said.

Instead, a broadcast text would be one message sent once to thousands of people, he said.

“It’s going to take a number of parties that are part of the wireless ecosystem before this system can become a reality,” Lee said.

Officials across wireless server providers have stressed the importance of multimodal communication in an emergency – meaning servers should not rely on text messages alone to alert people.

“When you use one single mode, such as SMS text messages, you leave yourself vulnerable,” said Jonathan Nguyen-Duy, product manager of business continuity services at Verizon.

Verizon has created a similar product for large entities such as corporations and schools that provide service to deliver time-sensitive voice or text messages to large volumes of people at once, especially in the case of an emergency.

The FCC’s commercial mobile service alert advisory committee serves as an objective party that evaluates the performance of servers’ alert notification systems, Lee said.

The committee is ensuring that servers are developing several forms of notification, such as video feed in a classroom, alarm signage and even tactics as simple as resident advisers knocking on doors.

“Fortunately we’re in the position to actually understand these issues and hopefully provide advice,” Lee said.

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.