If you haven't heard about it yet, you're going to hear about CMAS. It's the Commercial Mobile Alert System through which cell carriers will "broadcast" emergency alerts to mobile devices within a geographic area. CMAS is slated to be available for use by public safety officials in 2012...at no charge.
The first CMAS pilot is being conducted in San Diego County. It was demonstrated this past week by the San Diego Office of Emergency Services. The County is working with Sprint and the California Emergency Management Agency on the pilot. They've distributed about 100 mobile devices throughout the county that have been adapted to receive CMAS messages.
Per federal law, CMAS can be used for only three things: (1) Presidential alerts, (2) imminent threats, and (3) Amber Alerts. The carriers are to start shipping CMAS-ready mobile devices in 2012.
CMAS is one of the initiatives that fall under FEMA's IPAWS (Integrated Public Alert and Warning System) program. Another that's received a good bit of attention lately is digitization of the Emergency Alert System (EAS). We've written a good bit on both programs. See an earlier post on CMAS here and ones on EAS here and here. And, we expect to write still more as these are important initiatives that will eventually touch public safety officials throughout the country. Stay tuned!
All the best,
Rick
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