New technology: Missile alerts on your cell phone
When I first saw this headline, I thought it was for people like me who might want to be told every time there's a missile alert so that I can put it on my blog. But that's not what this is. It's much more sophisticated. It's an SMS to your cell phone every time there's a missile alert in your location. But it's still two years away. For the past year, the IDF Home Front Command has been working on warning civilians of rocket attacks via cellular devices. The command's Cellular Broadcasting Technology was already successfully tested in the nationwide exercise, Turning Point 3, held 6 weeks ago. The warning will be received as a free text message. “We realize that most of the people in the country have cellular phones,” explains Lt. Col. Uri Perez, Head of the Teleprocessing and Warning Platoon, when discussing the significance of cellular technology for distributing warnings in the country. He points out that today there are more cellular phones than people – nine million phones to seven million civilians. “The chance to receive a warning is very likely, and it’s a very personal thing that no matter your whereabouts, your cellular phone is with you – therefore we are moving in this direction.”There's a downside to this. If they know which 'Code Red' messages to send you, it also means that someone is able to track where you are via your cell phone at all times. That makes you want to turn the cell phone off when it's not in use.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:11 PM
3 Comments:
One positive about this - deaf people will be immediately alerted and have more valuable time to seek shelter.
One negative - this is assuming the cell towers are functioning. If they're sabotaged before the rockets, then missile alerts are useless.
The obvious problem is it can never be real-time. It won't do one any good since a missile is much faster than the fastest speed a human being can run. On the open, the missile wins. I think its redundant.
to Broomer and Norman: cell towers are positioned in overlapping mode of territory, so if one tower is down there are at least 3 others covering part of his territory as well. And as for speed, it takes a rocket from Gaza/Lebanon to reach central Israel 3 minutes. The warning is being received within min. 15 sec. or max. 1 minute. As for the next gen. the warning to be received within 4 sec., the Japanese are using it for earthquake warning.
Post a Comment
<< Home