Re: Red Alert 3 Mobile
Rocki Stenger
FEMA, in coordination with the FCC, will conduct a nationwide test of both Wireless Emergency Alerts and the Emergency Alert System at approximately 2:20 p.m. on Wednesday, October 4, 2023. The WEA test alert will be sent to mobile phones nationwide. Additional details are available here.
No. In the nationwide WEA test, FEMA will send a test National Alert. Under the WARN Act, participating wireless carriers may offer their subscribers the capability to block all WEAs except National Alerts. Although it is possible to opt out from other types of WEAs, such as those warning of imminent threats and missing children, the FCC strongly urges the public to stay opted in to receive all these life-saving messages.
Wireless companies volunteer to participate in WEA, which is the result of a unique public/private partnership between the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the FCC, and the United States wireless industry in order to enhance public safety.
Authorized public safety officials send WEA alerts through FEMA's Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) to participating wireless carriers, which then push the alerts to compatible mobile devices in the affected area.
The alerts are broadcast to the geographic area affected by an emergency. This means that if an alert is sent to a zone in New York, WEA-capable mobile devices in that zone can receive the alert, even if they are roaming or visiting from another state. In other words, a customer visiting from Chicago would be able to receive alerts in New York so long as the person has a WEA-enabled mobile device in the alert zone.
Consumers do not need to sign up for this service. WEA allows government officials to send emergency alerts to all subscribers with WEA-capable devices if their wireless carrier participates in the program.
A WEA alert appears on the screen of the recipient's handset as a text-like message. The alert is accompanied by a unique attention signal and vibration, which is particularly helpful to people with hearing or vision-related disabilities.
Yes. Consumers with prepaid phones can receive WEAs as long as their provider has decided to participate in WEA and the customer has a WEA-enabled device. These consumers receive the alerts just as customers with postpaid, monthly service do.
Consumers should check with their wireless carrier regarding the availability of WEA-capable handsets. In addition, CTIA, a wireless trade association, publishes lists of WEA-capable phones offered by the largest wireless providers.
Participation in WEA by wireless carriers is widespread but voluntary. Some carriers may offer WEA over all or parts of their service areas or over all or only some of their wireless devices. Other carriers may not offer WEA at all. Even if you have a WEA-enabled device, you would not receive WEAs in a service area where the provider is not offering WEA or if your device is roaming on a provider network that does not support the WEA service. Consumers should check with their wireless carriers to determine the extent to which they are offering WEA.
Partially. Participating wireless carriers may offer subscribers with WEA-capable handsets the ability to block alerts involving imminent threats to safety of life and/or AMBER Alerts. Consumers cannot block National Alerts.
To receive a WEA message, your handset must be WEA-capable, switched on, not on "airplane mode," and in the vicinity of and receiving service from a cell tower of a wireless carrier that participates in WEA.
WEA geographic precision is continuously improving. When the WEA program launched, participating wireless providers were generally required to send the alerts to a geographic area no larger than the county or counties affected by the emergency. Next, beginning in 2017, participating wireless providers were required to transmit alerts to a geographic area that best approximated the area affected by the emergency, even if it was smaller than a county. Now, as of December 2019, participating wireless providers must geographically target alerts to technologically compatible phones even more: they must deliver the alerts to the area specified by the alert originator with no more than a 1/10 of a mile overshoot.
This "enhanced geotargeting" relies on new smartphone technology and will be increasingly available as consumers upgrade their devices. CTIA, a U.S. wireless association, estimates that about 83 percent of consumers' smartphones support this enhancement in 2023, an increase from about 60 percent in 2022, 34 percent in 2021, and 18 percent in 2020. WEA-compatible phones that do not support enhanced geotargeting will still receive alerts based on the 2017 geographic area requirements.
No, the FCC does not send alerts. WEA alert originators include other federal agencies (such as the National Weather Service) and state and local government authorities. Alerts from authenticated public safety officials are sent through FEMA's IPAWS system to participating wireless carriers.
Wireless service customers should check with their wireless service provider to find out if their cell phone or mobile device is WEA-capable. Not all wireless service providers offer WEA, and some participating wireless service providers may offer WEA on some, but not all, of their mobile devices, and in some, but not all, of their service areas.
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Simply click on the link below, which will take you directly to the sign-up form. Have your cell phone with you and on. The opt-in list of groups now includes (1) public safety/ crime alerts; (2) campus closings; and (3) severe/ dangerous weather alerts. These groups will increase over time, and will always be available for you to update your personal e2Campus account. Announcements will be made when additional groups are available. (NOTE: Depending on your wireless service agreement a nominal charge may be incurred for receiving text messages)
This morning we noticed that our Arcadyan KVD21 5G gateway had a low temperature alert on the front panel. It was 71 degrees in the house, so this seemed really strange! I will say that we just recovered from a long power outage during the remnants of Hurricane Ian (I am in NC), so perhaps that made the gateway a little crazy? We unplugged the gateway and plugged it back in, and the alert went away. Just wondering if anyone else has seen this or if we should just assume it was a glitch and not worry about it. Thanks!
We had the low temperature alert this morning on our Arcadyan KVD21 5G Gateway. It was 67 in the house so definitely not a low temp. Unplugging and replugging the device back in cleared the alert but certainly hoping this won't be recurring issue.
I'm currently working on a mobile web app with external designers, but we (the developers) are allowed some input. They keep wanting to add alert and confirmation dialogs for things like form validation, signing out, deleting things, etc, which raises UX red flags for me - they just seem wrong on mobile web apps for some reason and I can't pinpoint exactly why.
Worse, they keep asking for things that alert() and confirm() can't do, like using "Delete/Cancel" or "Yes/No" instead of the default "OK/Cancel", or disabling the "Prevent this webpage from creating additional dialog" checkbox that appears on modern browsers. The only way to do this, of course, is to create custom dialogs, which raises even more red flags.
Generally you should look at the use of confirmation dialogs as a last resort. They break the flow of the task for users that understand the system. The dialogs are often confused by users or not read at all. First decide if something significant will happen. If so, determine if undo function can be developed.
You are specifically asking about bad for mobile web, and most of the answers don't seem to touch on that (they tend to argue whether or not pop-ups are inherently bad, and mostly suggest the same argument applies to mobile or desktop1).
For me, the biggest problem with pop-up alerts or confirmations on a mobile is when they don't (or can't because of space) show enough context about what they are asking to let the user answer the question from the pop-up alone.
For simple cases, the solution is to include enough context in the dialog to let the user make the decision. For instance, Google's notes on confirmations linked in another answer indirectly touch on this, but don't really draw attention to it. Their final dialog includes the title about to be deleted:
The problem comes when there isn't enough space to summarise the action being confirmed. For instance, if instead of just the one book, the user had selected 12 books to be deleted. A dialog on a mobile is unlikely to be able to list all titles in a readable way, so will probably have to settle for "Do you really want to delete the 12 selected titles". Including the count of titles will allow the user to recognise the severity of the action: if they are not 100% sure (or thought they were only deleting two items), they can at least cancel and review the main screen.
I would agree with your assertion that using native alert() or confirm() is nearly always bad for the reasons you cite: no control over what the buttons say; no control over the effects of "Prevent this webpage...". I would, however, disagree that "custom" dialogs are a "red flag" though (if you can't use the "built-in" dialogs, you have to use custom ones). However, all this is as true on mobile as desktop.
Overuse of alerts can be intrusive, but in themselves are no more intrusive on a mobile than a desktop (if anything, because of the smaller size of the screen, it's often easier to dismiss a mobile pop-up than on a desktop).
I don't think alert/confirm dialogs are bad, in mobile web or other contexts. When the user has to confirm an important operation, like deleting something, he will be pleased to have the opportunity to cancel this operation. But when you speak about form validation or signing out it's odd to ask confirmation for these things. Is signing out permanent? Can I simply log in again if I clicked on the link by error?
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