LifeinAsia - 11:46 pm on Oct 22, 2007 (gmt 0)

As homes become more wired, I can see a system in the future that would take advantage of that for emergency notifications. The main problem with the current Emergency Broadcast System is that it is passive- if someone doesn't have their radio or TV on, they're not going to get the message. But it would be great to have a system that could be "woken up" from a sleeping state by a central system to automatically alert people to emerencies.

Of course, there are some obvious downsides that need to be addressed and fixed:
1) Potential for being hacked and people sending false emergencies.
2) People still turning it off (the way they remove the batteries or disengage faulty smoke detectors instead of fixing them)
3) The last few non-wired holdouts who would be off the grid
4) Periodic testing of the system may cause some people to believe there is an actual emergency
5) System not working due to electricity or phone/network lines being down

Hmmm, I thought this was actually a pretty good idea until I started thinking about the downsides...

Question about the reverse-911: why can't you register a cell phone? To me, that seems like the best solution to get around most of the downsides I mentioned, at least as a temporary fix until a better system comes along.

[edited by: LifeinAsia at 11:49 pm (utc) on Oct. 22, 2007]