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Mobile Text Messaging in Information

Weaver Technical and Project Notes from RANET

Dissemination and Public Alert
Author: K. Sponberg, IEPAS Program Manager, UCAR JOSS, sponberg ‘at’ joss.ucar.edu
Date: March 5, 2009

Over the past few years a lot has been written about the use of cellular text messaging (SMS)
as a viable tool to distribute hazard alerts or similarly important messages to the public. Major
disasters such as Katrina and the Indian Ocean tsunami have spurred this discussion among
government, NGO, and commercial entities alike. Several countries have very advanced
systems relying on Cell Broadcast, while others are still testing and struggling to determine how
best to implement mobile messaging systems at both the local and national level. Similarly,
many humanitarian non-profits are using SMS to pass messages within their organization and to
communities in which they work, and some commercial services are even available to provide
subscribers with custom alerts on tsunami and similar hazard types.

This entry into Weaver attempts to summarize lessons learned, as well as provide guidance.
The emphasis here is more on the limitations of SMS, although this is not to say SMS is not
a valuable tool when properly applied in an alert system. An upcoming Weaver series on
developing and deploying mobile messaging systems for use by National Meteorological
Hydrological Services (NMHSs) will compliment this article by providing a more technical
‘how to’.

Lessons from RANET and SMS for Alert and Notification

Since 2005 RANET has operated its own SMS alert system, commonly referred to as the RANET Alert Watcher
(RAW). The RAW sends notifications to key individuals when the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC)
releases a message. Hence, the program is ‘watching’ for alerts, and in so doing it provides a basic notification
service. The full text of the messages from the PTWC cannot be squeezed into the size of a single SMS, so the
service is really intended as a ‘heads up’ notification to let professionals know that more information is available
through official channels.

The important thing about this service is that RANET targets only national and regional
points of contact who are officially involved with either warning of or responding to a
potential tsunami threat. This limitation is self-imposed for a number of reasons; technical
and non-technical. Most technical reasons relate to the cost and reliability of reaching
more than a few hundred individuals in a timely manner.

From a non-technical perspective, the goal of RANET is to empower national weather services and similar
entities by improving communication capabilities. Therefore, the program works within a community of
national governments where respect for soverienty is and should be a top priority. Put another way RANET (or
any non-governmental entity) has no business directly warning the public or even local authorities of another
country. Similarly, the guidance from the PTWC is, while publicly available through its website, meant for
professional consumption. This again is done so with respect for national sovereignty.

A full discussion on the importance of national sovereignty in matters of early warning is beyond the scope of

This document was prepared by the IEPAS and RANET program lead under award number – NA06OAR4310119 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce.
The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or the Department
of Commerce. Base support for RANET is provided by the USAID Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) and the NOAA NWS. It is administered by the UCAR Joint Office for Scientific Support.
Significant funding and in-kind support is provided by a number of national weather services, donor agencies, and the communities with which RANET works.
this article. But in short the process of warning is one of establishing trust and an ‘authoritative voice’, which
over time hopefully elicits correct action from another institution, community and/or individual. In fact public
warning is often a very local practice. Often national authorities, with the capability to sense and monitor
major events, pass information to a provincial or local official who in turn sends this information through
local distribution channels to the public at large. Often it is only in the most developed countries, where the
necessary resources and infrastructure exist, do national level early warning systems play a prominent role
in directly warning the public. Even so such warning information is often disseminated through the news
media and other non-government controlled channels as a means of reaching local populations. This passing
of information from the warning authority to the various responders or other officials is done so through a
deliberate (hopefully) warning chain. Alerts and notifications that operate outside of the official or de facto
warning chain undermine trust, generate rumors, and potentially do more harm than good.

Can the ‘Authoritative Voice’ be Maintained in 160 Characters?

Effective and reliable warning systems must be capable of maintaining an ‘authoritative voice’ or established
‘warning chain’. The technology used in such alert systems often contain some form of source verification or a
confirmation channel to maintain the overall network integrity. The lack of such a confirmation channel within
SMS alert systems is of primary concern. While one can set up a short code, establish a dedicated number,
or even apply a name to the warning authority (in essence creating a recognizable ‘from address’), it seems
highly unlikely that most individuals will know or confirm the sender of information. This is particularly true
when an SMS alert system is used for the general public rather than a closed group or ‘club’ of individuals.
Unfortunately, this leaves the possibility of spoofing messages or circulating rumors open. There are numerous
anecdotes of rumors being disseminated via SMS. These range from a tsunami hoax in 2006 (1, 2) to more
local rumors of AIDs infected watermelons in Qatar. In any alert system it is critical to have a passive or
confirmation channel in addition to the active alert channel.

By active channel I mean that a warning authority is actively attempting to push information to a particular
entity or user. The warning authority is not relying on the recipient to accidentally be waiting for information.
The passive channel is simply the opposite and might be characterized by a web page, text runner on a
television broadcast, or similar. The passive channel is largely a loading dock for information without any
particular emphasis on actively pushing a message to a specific recipient address.

Typically passive channels in alert systems serve to ‘saturate’ the community with a message, thereby simply
increasing the likelihood that a critical mass of individuals will receive the information in a timely manner.
But passive channels also serve three other critical roles. Passive channels are important in a large warning
ecosystem to provide varification (confirmation) of warning information, provide additional / more detailed
information that could not be carried by some other communication system, and/or simply service those who are
curious about an event but may not be directly affected. The later is important to ensure the primary warning
channels are not overwhelmed by those not in the potential impact area of a hazard threat.

Short text messaging systems, such as SMS on mobile devices, do not easily support passive channels.
Although, the actual message can be worded to direct recipients to more complete information. As a recent
example, text messages were sent to 3 million recipients in Victoria, Australia to warn about the current fire
disaster. According to news reports, the message sent by Australian authorities read as follows:

“Msg from Vic Police Extreme weather in Vic expected Mon night & Tues High fire risk Listen to
local ABC Radio for emergency updates Do not reply to this”

In this example the message specifically directs recipients to verify information through local syndicates of the
national broadcaster. Such direction clearly helps, but unfortunately it only improves the quality of the official
message. It does little to prevent other hoaxes of ‘viral’ rumors to be spread.
In short public education campaigns are necessary, if a SMS alert system is to be effectively deployed. The
recipients must understand that the message being sent is generally too limited for them to make fully informed
decisions. At best the message is a notification that the recipient should seek additional information. They
should seek additional information through a trusted channel to ensure the validity of the message, as well as
receive full details to determine if and how they might be affected.

It might be argued that because mobile devices are hyper-local (literally held by an individual) the message
sent to each device can be highly targeted geographically and in terms of content. This is certainly true, and as
location based services increase, so too will this possibility. However, the reality is that most warning messages
produced by government authorities simply are not this specific or detailed enough. This limitation may be due
to scientific barriers to provide more detailed information, limits in operational capacity, or even relate to legally
defined roles. Even in the most scientifically and technically advanced weather services, messages often apply
to large regions of a State / Province. Of course a lot will depend upon the geographic scope of the hazard
in question. Inherently a tornado or localized flash flood message can be more targeted than say a message
regarding a tropical cyclone or tele-tsunami.

Reliability and Speed

Beyond concerns of maintaining an ‘authoritative voice’, there are some technical limitations associated
with SMS and more specifically mobile networks. Although these limitations can be overcome with enough
resources and where a good relationship with mobile service providers exist. (A good overall discussion of
these limitations is outlined in Traynor, “Characterizing the Limitations of Third Party EAS Over Cellular Text
Messaging Services.”)

The first major limitation is really the design of mobile networks. Mobile networks operate in a point-to-point
manner. This means that unless you are specifically using Cell Broadcast technologies, outgoing messages
are literally queued for distribution. (Cell Broadcast capabilities, while in theory are universally available,
are not widely deployed or utilized in many countries. Use requires direct conversations with the carrier(s).)
The longer the queue, the longer it takes to distribute a message to each recipient. Many networks may not
be designed or capable of supporting large ‘bursts’ of messages that might be released in a public alert effort;
particularly during rush hours or other periods of high network usage. In the recent example from Australia,
reports stated that the outgoing messages arrived at widely varying times. Of course the fire alert example in
Australia is on the extreme end of examples with Australian authorities attempting to notify some 3 million
recipients. According to reports the mobile networks were only capable of sending several hundred thousand
message a hour. Clearly sending a message is better than sending no message; particularly for slower onset
events where a few hour delay may not have a significant impact. At the same time for fast onset events, such
as tsunami, mass public messaging of this scale will not be effective when every second literally matters.

Even if you are designing a mobile messaging system to reach a relatively small ‘club’ of recipients (a few
dozen to a few hundred), such as professional emergency managers, speed may be an issue depending upon
how you are sending messages. Without going into great detail there are actually a few options. The easiest
and best method to get around issues of speed is to directly discuss your system and needs with a mobile service
provider. For issues of public safety, most will provide some means of direct access to a messaging center
(SMSC). This connection is typically via the internet where, as a warning authority, you send a list of recipients
and the message(s). The SMSC very quickly queues and delivers the messages. If such a relationship is not
possible, you can work through a commercial SMS Gateway, such as Clickatell. These function in much
the same way as the SMSC. Depending upon the commercial operator’s infrastructure and relationship to
mobile providers, messaging speed may be nearly as fast as directly through an SMSC. However, with some
commercial SMS gateways, particularly those national or regional in scope, congestion on their network may
be an issue. Some commercial gateways provide premium services which in essence give your messages
priority over all other traffic on their network. It is important to ask if such services are available or if there is
a maximum delay guarantee. Finally, it is possible to simply connect one or more GSM modems / phones to
a server and send messages out directly this way. There are a number of advantages and disadvantages as to
why you might want such in house capability. However, this is by far the slowest method of sending messages.
Typically a modem will require anywhere from 5-15 seconds to send a message. In its designs RANET budgets
12 seconds for each message. Therefore it is a matter of simple math to determine how many individuals you
would like to reach and the number of modems required. As might be guessed it becomes costly to service
more than a few hundred recipients in a timely manner when sending directly through a GSM modem.

A final issue in terms of reliability and speed relates to the issue of network congestion. RANET views mobile
services as ‘quickly perishing’ networks during emergencies. This is to say that there are appropriate alert uses
for mobile networks, but one would have to assume that after the initial message is sent, if the hazard event
itself does not damage the network, then individual users may overwhelm network capacity trying to reach
family, friends, or even the office. In the United States this was very much the case following 9/11 and Katrina.
Although, it is worth noting that SMS does tend to get through congested networks more effectively than voice
or other data communications. (Another good discussion on how to use SMS for alerts is the GSM Association,
“The Role of Mobiles in Disasters and Emergencies.”) Additionally, mobile networks tend to be some of the
first communications re-established post-disaster. Nonetheless, if including mobile texting as part of an alert
strategy, the warning authority might consider it less reliable after the first volley of messages is sent, thereby
requiring some other means of communication to provide updates or continued alerts.

Does SMS Have a Role in Alert and Notification systems?

The short answer to this question is yes. Or perhaps more to the point, inevitably yes. As one of the most
pervasive and fastest growing means of connectivity, despite the above concerns, mobile services (SMS and
other) represent a valuable and powerful tool to quickly disseminate information to select groups of indivdiuals
and even the public at large. Moreover, mobile devices are changing expectations on how information is
received. Inherently a mobile phone is an intimate device; even more so than a personal computer one might
use at work or at home. While not being a sociologist myself, it is reasonable to assume that mobile devices
change the expectation of how information services work. Through a mobile phone, individuals do not expect
to seek out information, but rather expect that information to seek them out. So, not only does mobile text
messaging have a role to play in alert and notification services, but the expectation may soon become for
weather services and related authorities to provide their information over these networks.

That said there are some clear limitations that need to be managed and addressed. The more technical issues
will improve as network capacities improve. Warning systems work best when information is disseminated
through multiple platforms and media. Mobile phones represent one more platform. And as noted early, issues
of security and maintaining trust are best addressed through dialog and education. This is perhaps not unique to
mobile services, but a necessary part of any end-to-end warning chain.

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