WIRELESS ALERT

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WIRELESS ALERT WARNING WORKSHOP

• Brian K. Daly
• Director, Network Architecture Standards

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Agenda

• Introduction
• CMSAAC Update
• SMS Based Alerts Warnings
• How SMS Works
• Why SMS-based Alerts Warnings are Problematic
• Cell Broadcast Technology for Alerts Warnings
• Issues with Auto-Dialers
• Summary

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Introduction

• Wireless Alerts Warnings have been extensively
  studied by many groups internationally,
  including
• 3GPP
• ITU
• 3G Americas
• GSM Association
• General Consensus1
• There is no one technology that would satisfy
  all service and performance expectations
  multi-channel message delivery is needed.
• The management of telecommunications
  capabilities is crucial during disasters that
  degrade the infrastructure, especially where the
  infrastructure may have been minimal beforehand.
  This includes avoiding overload in processing and
  delivering warning messages, prioritization of
  calls, network management and provisioning, and
  infrastructure restoration.

1 - Joint ITU-T/ OASIS Workshop and Demonstration
of Advances in ICT Standards for Public Warning,
Oct 2006
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Introduction (continued)

• Wireless is just one component in an effective
  public alert warning system
• Technologies available through wireless include
• SMS
• Cell Broadcast
• Voice calls
• In the Future Multimedia Broadcast Mobile
  Video
• An effective wireless alert warning
• efficiently broadcasts the alerts warnings to
  the greatest number subscribers technically
  feasible without significantly adding load to the
  critical network resources that will result in
  further network congestion

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Commercial Mobile Alert Service Architecture
Critical Function for CMSPs to Deploy CMAS
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CMSAAC Issues Under Study

• During emergencies, support for National Security
  / Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP) users and 9-1-1
  calls are critical
• Need to minimize the potential for Wireless
  Alerts resulting in severe network congestion
  that inhibits critical communications
• An alert to a wireless device encourages
  subscribers to immediately use that device
• Point-to-point or unicast delivery technologies
  (i.e. SMS point-to-point, MMS) are not feasible
  or practical for the support of wireless alerts
• Especially on a nationwide, statewide, or large
  city scale
• Point-to-point will quickly congest a network,
  resulting in significant message delays or
  messages not delivered, as well as denying voice
  service

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CMSAAC Issues Under Study (continued)

• Distribution of the alerts to the wireless
  subscribers will be unidirectional from the
  wireless operator network to the mobile device of
  the subscriber
• No acknowledgement or confirmation of receipt by
  the mobile device in order not to add to network
  congestion
• Do not want to provide phone numbers or links to
  encourage subscriber to use device for
  non-essential purposes
• Broadcast Technologies (e.g. Cell Broadcast,
  future MBMS) provide an efficient delivery
  mechanism for wireless alerts to large numbers of
  subscribers

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CMSAAC Issues Under Study (continued)

• CMSAAC has proposed Service Profiles which
  prescribe the underlying delivery attributes
• Text and future streaming audio, streaming video
  multimedia
• Goal has been to define service profiles and not
  specific delivery technologies
• If an Operator elects to transmit alerts they
  have the option to use any available technology
  that supports a given profile
• Minimum recommendation for Geo-targeting of alert
  messages is on a county basis
• Service Provider may target smaller areas subject
  to technology capabilities and operator policy

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CMSAAC Issues Under Study (continued)

• Only alerts that are immediate, severe, or likely
  threat to life, health or property will be
  delivered to mobile devices
• Minimize the cry wolf syndrome
• Commercial Mobile Alerts is a notification
  service
• Limitations on number of text characters that can
  be broadcast and displayed
• Commercial Mobile Alerts are only one component
  to an overall effective emergency notification
  strategy
• Supplements existing emergency notification
  systems such as Radio/TV-based EAS and National
  Weather Service All-Hazards Radio
• A common experience across all commercial mobile
  service providers and technologies is desirable
• Common alert tone and/or vibration cadence

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CMSAAC Issues Under Study (continued)

• Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is under
  consideration for the alert origination point to
  the alert gateway
• CAP is not delivered to the mobile device
• Battery Life Degradation
• Consumers have expectations on mobile device
  battery life
• Commercial mobile alert services could negatively
  impact those expectations
• ATT is concerned that limited Social Science or
  Focus Group studies have been performed
• What will be the end user reaction to receiving
  these alert notifications?
• End Users clogging 9-1-1 or operator customer
  care services for more information
• Reaction when receiving alerts while driving, for
  example

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CMSAAC Issues Under Study (continued)

• Service Providers mobile device vendors should
  have flexibility in mobile design and
  implementation of CMA
• take advantage of advances in mobile device
  technologies
• account for the evolution of mobile devices and
  the capabilities of the future
• Provision has been made in the CMAS architecture
  to support multi-languages
• However, a National Plan for languages other then
  English needs to be developed and the alert must
  be delivered to the operator in the language to
  be transmitted

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ATT View on Benefits of A National Commercial
Mobile Alert System

• Development of a robust emergency alert messaging
  system for wireless telephony is an ongoing and
  extraordinarily complex undertaking
• Rather than taking an ad hoc approach to such an
  important and complex public safety initiative,
  ATT believes the national process defined in the
  WARN Act is the most effective way to achieve a
  robust, sustainable, scalable and reliable
  wireless emergency alert system for all Americans
• The most effective way to address the commercial
  mobile alert challenge is with the full range of
  stakeholders at the table and through a
  nationwide approach that supports local, state,
  and Federal agencies

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ATT View on Benefits of A National Commercial
Mobile Alert System

• A National system is crucial to ensure
• Mobile devices and CMA applications are
  compatible and interoperable throughout the
  nation
• End users traveling or relocating throughout the
  nation will be able receive alerts with the same
  device in the geographic area where the alert is
  issued
• Alerts to end users will have the same look and
  feel nationwide and across CMSPs
• Aggregation of alerts from all possible agencies
  at the local, State and Federal level
• A National mobile alert system developed under
  the WARN Act will provide the fastest path toward
  a robust, sustainable, scalable and reliable
  commercial mobile alert service

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Some General Wireless Concepts

• The wireless network is a shared infrastructure..
• With over 200 million wireless subscribers in the
  U.S., it is physically impossible to dedicate
  network resources radio channels to everyone
  that has a mobile phone
• Given the shared nature of the wireless network,
  operators must design the networks to handle
  anticipated traffic loads
• Engineering is typically done based on the number
  of calls messages during the busy hour
• Exceeding the busy hour causes congestion
  (Mothers Day)
• Congestion leads to blocked calls
• Fast busy tone
• Were sorry, you call cannot be completed at
  this time
• Blocked messages
• Resulting in messages being delayed significantly

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Minneapolis I35W Bridge Disaster
The Minneapolis bridge collapse has illustrated
the ironic twist to cell phones Just when
people need them most, they might not work.
Cell-phone companies say their networks aren't
built to handle the extra load during
emergencies. "Jay Reeves, 39, was one of the
first people on the scene after the collapse. He
tried calling 911, but all the lines were
jammed."
- Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 6, 2007
- CIO, August 3, 2007
Cell-phone congestion blocked some calls near the
collapsed bridge site Wednesday evening, causing
Minneapolis police to ask people to get off their
phones. Police needed to use the cell-phone
networks themselves to mobilize doctors, the Red
Cross and other emergency workers who don't have
police radios, said James Farstad, a city
telecommunications consultant. "Cell-phone
networks are not designed for everybody who has a
cell phone to use it at the same time,"
- Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 6, 2007
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How SMS works Step 1 Find Brian
HLR
Message for Brian Tornado Take Shelter
Where Is Brian
Last Report _at_ MSC 1234
Internet
or
Here I am!
Aggregator
Message Center
Brian
Authorized Alert Initiator
Message for Brian Tornado Take Shelter
Find
Brian
MSC 1234 VLR
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How SMS works Step 1 Deliver Message
Message from Brian Acknowledged
OK I can get rid of message. No retries needed
Message Center
Brian
Message from Brian Acknowledged
Message for Brian Tornado Take Shelter
MSC 1234 VLR
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Points to Note

• The Find Brian process is the same whether the
  network is delivering a voice call or an SMS
• Limited number of channels available to page
  subscribers
• If paging channels get congested ? subscribers
  will miss voice call or SMS pages
• The more subscribers there are in a particular
  cell or sector, the greater the chance of
  congesting the paging channels
• especially in disaster scenarios or trying to
  send too many SMS messages to that cell/sector
• There is a physical limit on the rate at which
  SMS messages can be delivered on the radio
  channels
• typical rates at which the actual SMS message may
  be delivered is 2 SMSs per second per sector
• If Brian cant be found, the message center
  stores the message for later retry

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ATT SMS-Based Emergency Alerts Issues

• Message Delays
• SMS emergency alert message delivery times can
  exceed 1 hour, and may require multiple to tens
  of hours for delivery
• Network and radio interface congestion to the
  point of blocking voice calls
• By examining the Washington, DC, and Manhattan
  scenarios, it can be concluded that, if SMS were
  used extensively during a crisis, a significant
  SMS load could be placed on a network.
  Individually, the voice load and SMS load are
  multiple times higher than the engineered
  capacity at each sector. This analysis has not
  considered several factors that might increase
  load, such as messages originating from other
  sources (e.g., the Internet) and terminating in
  the congested area. It has also not considered
  message re-send attempts after failures, which
  add to network load. (NCS SMS over SS7,
  TECHNICAL INFORMATION BULLETIN 03-2, December
  2003)
• SMS Lacks Security ? Spoofing and Denial of
  Service Attacks
• For mobile terminated national emergency
  messages it would be possible for spam either
  from a mobile phone or from the Internet to
  create malicious emergency messages and cause a
  panic reaction for many mobile subscribers. (ETSI
  TR 102 444 V1.1.1 (2006-02)
• ability to deny voice service to cities
  (Exploiting Open Functionality in SMS-Capable
  Cellular Networks)
• Lack of Geographic Targeting

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SMS Points of Congestion
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Real-life SMS Alert Experiences

• SMS glitch mars testing of new tsunami warning
  system (Pacific Wave '06 exercise)
• Delayed SMS messages in Thailand marred otherwise
  successful trial of a regional tsunami warning
  system by dozens of countries across the Pacific.
• Of more concern to test organisers was news later
  that plans to alert emergency coordinators to
  tsunami threats failed to work in Thailand when
  busy cell phone networks took hours to deliver
  key messages.
• "The problem we faced was with communications. We
  have no idea whether our messages sent to local
  operations chiefs by fax and SMS arrived on time
  or not, and by midday some of them said they did
  not receive the SMS," Pakdivat Vajirapanlop from
  the National Disaster Warning Center told AFP.
  .
• "We need to know whether they have received our
  messages. What can they do if the messages don't
  arrive on time? Then the warning is useless,"
  said Pakdivat, the center's deputy operations
  chief.
• Hoax text message spreads tsunami terror in
  Indonesia (June, 2007)
• Thousands of people fled their homes in panic on
  the Indonesian coast after hoax text messages
  spread warning them that a tsunami will hit the
  region, journalists and officials said Wednesday
• "The possibility is that a tsunami may take place
  on June 7," said part of a short telephone text
  message (SMS) that is widely circulating in
  various coastal areas of Nusa Tenggara province,
  local journalists said.

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Real-life SMS Experiences

• Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority
  Working Group Report on Use of Text Messaging in
  Public Safety Alerts, September 2005
• The most significant benefit of the SMS system
  is that an emergency alert sent through it can be
  received by all mobile stations without any
  special arrangements. The greatest disadvantage
  is that the system is slow, and the greater the
  number of recipients, the greater the
  disadvantage. .. It follows that it would take
  about 1.5 hours to transmit 100,000 messages.
• SMS tsunami rumor hits Sumatra (May 2005)
• Rumors that a volcanic eruption had sent a
  tsunami crashing toward the coast spread through
  a seaside town on Indonesia's Sumatra Island
  early Tuesday, prompting thousands of panicked
  residents to flee to high ground
• "It was unclear how Tuesday's rumor began, but it
  quickly spread by word of mouth and SMS text
  message, the state news agency Antara Antara
  reported. By about 2.a.m., almost all the mosques
  in the town were broadcasting tsunami warnings
  from their loudspeakers along with religious
  verses, it said.

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ATT View on Cell Broadcast

• Cellular broadcast technologies may eventually
  provide the best solution for large-scale
  emergency notification on mobile wireless
  networks
• Near term cell broadcast is text based (Text
  Profile in CMSAAC)
• Cell Broadcast is deployed and operated only by
  the CMSP
• State of the Union of Cell Broadcast Service
  (CBS)
• Has limited deployments and trials in the U.S.
• Most handsets deployed today do not have cell
  broadcast capability
• CBS menus are not visible to subscribers
• Software for CBS may or may not exist in the
  handset
• CBS in handsets have never been tested or
  validated
• Future capabilities may include multimedia
  broadcast
• Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service provides a
  broadcast capability for multimedia
• Maps, video audio clips, still pictures,
  graphics, etc.

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ATT Issues with Auto-Dialers

• Cellular networks are engineered to support busy
  hour traffic
• Not designed to support voice or message traffic
  for every end user simultaneously
• Auto-dialers can easily exceed the busy hour
  traffic load on the network and cell sites
• End result is network congestion and potential
  for critical communications (such as 9-1-1 calls)
  to be blocked

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Summary

• ATT has long recognized and supported the use of
  wireless technology to promote public safety
• ATT is committed to the CMSAAC development
  process for a robust, sustainable, scalable and
  reliable commercial mobile alert service
• Emergency Notification System solutions should be
  carefully evaluated to understand the issues,
  limitations, unintended consequences, and
  expectations for end users
• ATT is willing to partner with local and State
  jurisdictions throughout the CMSAAC process
• Recommend all stakeholders participate in the
  CMSAAC process

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"This limit of cell phones catches most people
by surprise," said Roger Entner, senior vice
president of the communications sector at IAG
Research in New York. "They get very upset, but
then they forget about it. These are the same
kinds of conversations we had with people after
September 11." "Regular cell phone service is
for regular consumer usage," Entner said. "It
was not designed to be the network of last
resort, and it would be too expensive to
engineer it for that."
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Backup Slides
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WARN Act Overview

• Warning, Alert, and Response Network Act
• U.S. Congress Passed the WARN Act as Part of SAFE
  Port Act on September 20, 2006
• Signed by U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday
  October 13th, 2006
• Required the FCC to Establish the Commercial
  Mobile Service Alert Advisory Committee (CMSAAC)
  within 60 days of enactment
• First Meeting was December 12, 2006
• Membership by appointment of the FCC Chairman
• Tasked for development of system-critical
  recommendations

ATT is an Appointed Member of the CMSAAC and
Chairs the Communication Technology Group
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WARN Act Milestones
We are here
Mandated Operator Election Date
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Key WARN Act Requirements

• Voluntary ? Commercial Mobile Service Providers
  (CMSP) are required to make an Election to
  Transmit or Not Transmit Emergency Alerts in
  September 2008
• Elections can be in whole or in part
• If elect not to transmit, must notify subscribers
  and provide notification at point-of-sale
• If elect to transmit, must comply with standards,
  protocols, procedures, and regulations adopted by
  FCC
• For CMSPs that Elect to Transmit Alerts
• Presidential-level Alerts must be transmitted
• May offer subscriber opt-out capability for other
  classes of alerts
• No Fee for Service
• Transmission in languages in addition to English
  to the extent practical and feasible
• Liability Protections

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Overview of the CMSAAC

• Purpose
• Develop and submit to FCC recommendations
  regarding technical standards and protocols to
  enable participating CMSPs to transmit emergency
  alerts to subscribers
• Recommendations due to FCC one year from WARN Act
  enactment (due October 12, 2007)
• Comprised of a wide range of stakeholders,
  including representatives from state, local, and
  tribal governments vendors, developers and
  manufacturers technical experts other
  governmental agencies and wireless service
  providers

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CMSAAC Organization
Chairman Martin (or Designee)
David Webb (FEMA)
Anthony Melone (Verizon Wireless)
Brian K. Daly (ATT)
Jonathan Werbell/Gary Jones (NYC/T-Mobile)