SMS - Belgium's first line of defence
By Jan Libbenga
Published Friday 17th June 2005 10:30 GMT
Belgian interior minister Patrick Dewael intends to warn every
Belgian resident via SMS in times of national emergency. Apparently,
Belgium is the first European country to use cell broadcast for this
purpose.
Cell Broadcast is a mobile technology that allows messages to be
broadcast to all mobile handsets and similar devices within a
designated geographical area. The broadcast range can run from a
single cell to the entire network. The technology is already used in
deploying location-based subscriber services, including regional
auctions, local weather and traffic conditions.
Belgium's Dewael wants to modernise the nation's current alarm
system, and believes sending an SMS message to every resident is the
best possible way. However, sirens, radio and television would still
be used in the future.
At this moment it still too early to estimate the costs. Sending SMS
messages to all subscribers will be expensive, but is probably also
more effective. In many European countries there are already more
mobile phones than there are people.
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* Origin: [adminz] tech, security, support (192:168/0.2)
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