See, it’s always confused me why this has taken so long after 7/7.
In 2013 there was a trial of this sort of technology, so I’m not sure why we’re now doing another one when that one recommended implementation at the time?
We had a test in East Suffolk yesterday, this is what the message looks like.
It was tested in a small town called Leiston, which is not far from the huge Sizewell nuclear plant … maybe a coincidence? 
!
I had assumed it would be an SMS message, but it’s its own thing apparently.
Why would they reinvent the wheel like that? It’s going to require very recent versions of iOS or Android and will only be received if you have a 4G or 5G connection.
Sounds mad to me. I lived most of my life in an area where any signal was patchy, nevermind a data connection. And I certainly won’t have a compatible device for a while.
So… Emergency alerts but only for those with a high quality data connection, a pretty new device, and a very recent version of one of two specific operating systems.
Sms are too easy to spoof.
The number of supported devices will only increase over time, so it’s heading in the right direction. Obviously it wilk be just one component of any emergency alerts since it doesn’t provide 100% coverage.