New Scientist Article on SMS Disasters; ARC++

The New Scientist article, 'Text message broadcasts could provide disaster alerts' mentions ARC, but there's some interesting stuff in there.

...The GSM cellphone standard already enables phones to receive short data messages from the nearest cellphone base station on a separate channel from normal voice and text message communications. The Cellular Emergency Alerts System Association (CEASA), a non-governmental organisation based in the UK, is campaigning to have the system turned into a disaster warning service...

...The "Cell Broadcast" or "Area Information System" was originally designed to let network operators offer location based services, but is now rarely used.

To turn it into an early warning service, a customised PC needs to be installed at the headquarters of each network operator. This contains the geographical co-ordinates of all phone masts, enabling operators to target emergency messages to all phones in the required region.

"We can define an area very clearly and it's scalable to any degree you like," says Mark Wood, the secretary general of CEASA who has previously worked as an emergency coordinator for the United Nations. "You could send a warning to a small village that is about to be washed out, or you could tell an entire region there's a tsunami coming."...

They are, of course, referring to CEASA. We're talking with these folks, and trying to determine the future of ARC. They are, after all, quite similar projects.

More from the New Scientist article:

...Another project reverses the use of text messages in emergencies, allowing those on the ground to send calls for help to a single number, which would then be routed via the internet to the relevant authority.

The programmers behind the project, called the Alert Retrieval Cache, say even in remote communities people typically have access to at least one cellphone, making this a vital communications link.

But mobile phones may form only part of an overall warning system strategy, says Reid Basher, head of the UN's International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. "You need multiple systems," he told New Scientist. "The more systems the better, because it reaches more people."...

That's something important that many people don't realize about these systems - communications systems such as this should complement one another. For example, the SMS broadcast could be sent to an email list of HAM operators, or even broadcast to specific people who are HAM operators in the region. The possibilities are limited to what is usable within the affected region.

And why bother with all of this? Read The Tsunami as a Wake-Up Call to Bridging the Digital Divide; I think Andy Carvin says it all.