Alert Ready, is Public Mobile Compatible?

[LovingTeddy]

Starting April 6th, in addition to TV and Radio, Alert Ready will be sending life-threatening emergency alerts to cell phones and wireless devices that are compatible with Wireless Pubic Alerting (WPA).

In order for emergency alerts to be received on a wireless device, three conditions must be met. The wireless device must be:

1. An LTE-device like a smartphone (LTE is commonly referred to as “4G LTE”)
2. Wireless public alerting (WPA)-compatible
3. Connected to an LTE cellular network at the time the emergency alert is issued.

I checked the Alert Ready website, almost all carrier have a page deciated to this. While there is no pages about this on Public Mobile Website. This would be very useful and life saving when government issues emergency alert. 

[computergeek541]

Public Mobile is making it so that Public mobile customers receive these alerts (as they are now required to).  I never received any of the testing messages but did receive an Amber Alert a few days ago.

Interesting is how all articles and sources of information I see insist that the user must be connected to an LTE network to receive alerts.  So, if your phone doesn't have LTE, your Public saftetey isn't as important?  I know that there's going to be the argument used that most modern smartphones do have LTE, but if it's really about safety, this system really should have been implemented across all cellular network types across the country.  Not doing so seems nothing more than a cost-cutting measure to me.

Also, since the LTE network connection is a requirement, you're not going to receive any alerts if your phone falls back to a 3g network.  And at Public Mobile, if you're in a phone call, guess what?  No alert will be received because you won't be connected to LTE at that time.  This is all of course assuming that all of the information sources about the LTE requirement are correct.

[Maple]

But I didn't get any of the alert.  Does the plan with PM matters?

[Wonder_why]

Double post Oops

[Wonder_why]

@stonechucker only few devices reported did receive the alerts 😃

[stonechucker]

@Wonder_why, not sure what to say.  I know my phone is not on the list of devices that will get the message.

Perhaps the Ontario test has the same issue the Quebec test did this morning?

[Wonder_why]

@stonechucker hmmm! iPhone X didn't got it ,some have reported Google XL got it and I didn't got it on S8 plus 😋

[stonechucker]

A fellow at work on an iPhone SE got the alert at 13:56 ET.  He's on a different network.

According to the list of devices, my Nexus 5 is not compatible.  So I didn't hear it on my phone.

[Wonder_why]

Oops system fails 😋

[Wonder_why]

You will hear the testing in about 5 minutes 

[srlawren]

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@Maple wrote:

Still waiting for confirmation from PM.

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@Maple yes, it's 100% confirmed.  Please see the announcement for more details.

[stonechucker]

Every other Telus system is, and we wrere told in the original Announcement that Public Mobile will work on this.

[Maple]

Still waiting for confirmation from PM.

[Maple]

I checked today, PM is still not on the compatible carrier's list.   Can we please get a confirmation that we can receive WPA?  Thanks.

[Brooke_C]

@neilgunn,  we will be conducting a test alert in early May. Stay tuned for more details! 

[neilgunn]

Do I need a data plan for these alerts to work? Will the alerts work if I have LTE disabled in the iPhone settings? The LTE signal at my house is very weak, I get better results using 3G. 

Is there a way to test receiving an alert?

[Acekiller]

good to know!

[ShawnC13]

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@Brooke_Cwrote:

Hey @ShawnC13, 

Public Mobile is providing Canada's Alert Ready service to compatible devices as of April 6, 2018. Our site is going through some updates, meaning that we are not listed yet, but will be later this week. 

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Thank you for the update, and confirmation that this will be available to us PM Customers!!

[Brooke_C]

Hey @ShawnC13, 

Public Mobile is providing Canada's Alert Ready service to compatible devices as of April 6, 2018. Our site is going through some updates, meaning that we are not listed yet, but will be later this week. 

[ShawnC13]

@Brooke_C, @Mary_M, @Shazia_K, can we get an answer on this as PM is not listed in the  carriers of the drop down.  Will PM customers get these warnings when sent out?

[gwydionjhr]

Where do you see them listed?  When I click on the drop down to check your phone's compatibility, I don't see Public Mobile on the list?

Personally, I think they should have manadated that FM radio capability be built into the phones.  An alert system that relies on towers that may not have power thanks to something like an earthquake isn't going to be very helpful.

[Korth · Accepted solution]

LTE is a good choice.  4G technologies are (supposedly) fully backward-compatible with 3G technologies (which are themselves supposedly fully backward-compatible with 2G technologies, etc).

So 4G-compatible devices are overwhelmingly dominant - nearly 100% of all the phones sold in Canada will be able to receive these WPA broadcasts, unless they're so antique that they won't even turn on and you can't even buy replacement batteries anymore.

(Or they're GPRS-/CDMA-based, which might require implementing a different WPA system.  But CDMA is already almost fully phased out, the only operator with CDMA hardware is already dismantling it ... and WPA has got to start somewhere, lol, no reason for them to install their own hardware when they can and should use the actual existing communications network hardware.)

4G network coverage in Canada is now nearly 100%, any areas left without LTE coverage have no wireless coverage of any other kind anyhow, no matter what kind of phone you have (unless it's a PTT iDEN sort of phone, I guess, like the sorts used by actual emergency responders, but this is hardly mainstream and already has its own integrated emergency communications trunk hierarchy).

Let's face it - any tinfoil hats who reject cellphone invasion/surveillance are going to have other mechanisms for receiving (or monitoring) emergency alerts, ham radio or a secret conspiracy club or whatever - or they'll be so far off the grid that public warnings wouldn't even matter to them.

I expect that real, serious alerts - not just annoying tests - will actually be broadcast across multiple channels.  Your phone will receive texts and data from multiple emergency-priority channels, your "cable" TV and commercial radio programs will be interrupted, etc.  The assumption is probably that you'll hear about low-urgency warnings (boil water advisory, etc) in time, while extreme-urgency warnings (gunfire, explosions, nuclear strike, etc) will simply spam out overrides on every channel of every medium possible because chances are the communication infrastructures themselves aren't even all fully intact and functional.

I don't see any fault in this system.  Aside from being intermittently annoyed by the tests.

[computergeek541]

I am wondering why everything that I read about this keeps refering to LTE.  If the purpose of these alerts it to increase public safety, surely the messages should be broadcasted over all available network technology types and not just LTE.

[Korth]

Public Mobile is listed in the wireless carrier links at the Alert Ready site.

And the Wireless Public Alert (WPA) system will not be fully implemented until 6 April 2018, even though some emergency broadcast tests will be conducted in late March.

I agree, PM should create a page for WPA information (like they've done with E911 information).

There's no law or regulation requiring they do so, and it's the sort of thing most people don't at all care about (until they actually need to use it).  But the conspicuous lack of WPA even being mentioned on the official PM pages can be misleading/uncertain enough for concerned shoppers to keep their gaze moving onwards.