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New UK emergency alert system discussion

I got the alert but it was silent. Obviously my phone is always on vibrate (I'm not a psychopath) but I thought the system was meant to override that..?
 
John said:
I got the alert but it was silent. Obviously my phone is always on vibrate (I'm not a psychopath) but I thought the system was meant to override that..?
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Aren’t you still on something older than a Nokia 3310? Might not accept anything beyond voice…


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I was in another room at the time so missed it. Although the kids said they didn’t hear it go off, I had the notification on my phone. Phones not on silent either.
 
Quite interesting here though - I’m in Swindon shopping outlet, phone signal is terrible. Even now, like 10m after 3pm, people are walking out of shops and their phones are picking it up and going off.

Wonder how long the signal’s broadcast for.
 
Neither my parents or I got the alert.
 
pluk said:
I consider myself alterted. What a horrible noise.
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Yeah that definitely brought back a bit of PTSD for me... last time I heard it a Hurricane Ian was barrelling towards us in Florida and caused a very sleepless night with the storm rattling the house to death and no power, having to sleep under the stairs like Harry Potter ... @Burbs @Ian 😰


Danscott22 said:
It overrode my do not disturb/silent mode. I know quite a few people didn’t get it at all
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Skyscraper said:
Same here, glad I'm not the only one! My mum received it but I didn't, and we have similar phones.
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zeock said:
Neither my parents or I got thealert.
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Unfortunately like all technology (particularly where a 'wireless' element is involved!) things can not go as expected, and your phone could have missed the broadcast from the network cell, or only partially received the broadcast (as its sent as a bunch of 'SMS style' messages over multiple parts and joined back together) and so disregarded it.

But this was also the whole reason this took place - surprisingly not just to annoy and educate people, but prove the system works and iron out any issues that did occur.

I suspect the broadcast time would have been set very low for a test (so as not to annoy people too much), but in a real emergency the broadcast time would be a lot higher, which should increase your chances of successfully receiving the alert next time.

Also - quite interestingly - the number of people complaining on Twitter about not receiving the message has been quite interesting to observe given all the fuss about not wanting to receive it from the nay-sayers beforehand 😂

Islander said:
Quite interesting here though - I’m in Swindon shopping outlet, phone signal is terrible. Even now, like 10m after 3pm, people are walking out of shops and their phones are picking it up and going off.

Wonder how long the signal’s broadcast for.
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Obviously in a real emergency you'd want as many people to receive the message as possible, and people are invariably in brief moments of no mobile signal - a tunnel, car, building etc., so to account for that a cell site does usually continuously broadcast the alert.

The broadcast time is designated for each message, and can be between 2 seconds and up to and beyond 30 minutes. I suspect being a test it was relatively low this time, but thats not to say that some cell sites could have been delayed in receiving the signal (I'm sure thats being thoroughly checked as part of this test!) or many other factors that could have delayed the signal. It could well have been that your phone was registered with the cell but signal so weak it couldn't receive the broadcast for example.

However the technology is designed so that a cell mast would broadcast the signal continuously and repeatedly for a designated period of time - your device however is programmed to ignore the same broadcast if it has the same identification number (a unique serial per message) as a previous one broadcast and received by your device.

Interestingly I got two alerts on my watch - one mirrored from my phone that received it at 15:59, and then another one at around 16:01 as my watch has its own SIM and connection - so it clearly can't quite distinguish them being the same identification for that alert, and I only dismissed the first one - which meant the second one just sounded now as it thought it was a separate one received.

Anyway, that's all over and done with now, and we can all go back to normal until the next time it sounds... 😂

Rocking Back And Forth Family Guy GIF
 
A quick alert report:

Had talksport on whilst on the M1 which reminded me about the alerts being sent out soon. This really whetted the appetite for what was to come. The next 10 minutes or so was very tense. What if the alert was going to be a let down? Maybe I'd overhyped it too much. The American one I'd previously experienced managed to crack my top 10 favourite alerts.

So how was the alert? Well unfortunately I was very disappointed. My phone was on silent and didn't make a sound. I could see the message on my screen and that's it. Tbf its a brand new alert system so teething issues are perhaps to be expected.

3/10.
 
Islander said:
Quite interesting here though - I’m in Swindon shopping outlet, phone signal is terrible. Even now, like 10m after 3pm, people are walking out of shops and their phones are picking it up and going off.

Wonder how long the signal’s broadcast for.
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Just seen the Government has confirmed it was broadcast for 20 minutes, so you could have received it between 15:59 - 16:19 in theory.

Also there is a survey for anyone who wishes to complete it for feedback on the alert:

 
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