Wireless messaging for mass information and alerting in emergency situations
With governments mandating public-warning systems to alert their populations in situations of heightened risk, the mobile phone is an ideal medium for this purpose.
Alert Broadcast Centre (ABC) is Enghouse Networks solution for wireless public alerting. It supports the geo-targeted, mass distribution of emergency messages to mobile subscribers via multiple different channels (Cell Broadcast, SMS, Push Notifications, MMS, USSD). It also supports all standard interfaces through which authorities may submit alerting campaigns (CAP, CMAS, WPAS) and can easily accommodate others.
Depending on the architecture specified for a national alerting system, Alert Broadcast Centre can be offered as a central solution to the national authority or to the operators of public wireless networks to help meet their statutory obligations in support of national and local alerting.
Alert Broadcast Centre can also support the configuration and scheduling of commercial messaging campaigns that do not interfere with emergency alerting, which can help operators to monetise their investment.
Key Benefits
Key Features
Broadcast Manager
Enables the reception, configuration, launch and monitoring of alerting campaigns.
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GIS-Enabled Site Repository
Includes a GIS Server to store the co-ordinates of all cell sites in the network.
Dynamic Map-based UI
- Supports the visualisation of campaigns on maps so system administrators can quickly monitor when and where campaigns are active.
- Optionally, supports the creation of new campaigns using a map-based UI. (This can be useful for testing the system independently of the national emergency centre).
Alerting API’s
Supports the major alerting protocols (CAP, CMAS and WPAS) that enable authorities to initiate public warning campaigns.
Delivery Channels
Supports geo-targeted SMS and Cell Broadcast in GSM, CDMA and LTE networks.
FAQs
Alert Broadcast Centre
The short answer is both! A lot depends on the architecture of the Public Warning System architecture specified by the National Regulator or Interior Ministry.
Some regulators specify a centralised system where a single CBE and CBC supports Wireless Public Alerting for the entire country. In such cases the MNOs must provide the CBC with direct access to their wireless network(s). In other markets, the regulators specify an architecture whereby each MNO must provide the CBC within their own network, which will receive alert campaigns from the authorities’ CBE via an agreed alerting API. (In such markets it may also be permitted for a 3rd party to host the CBC for multiple small MNOs receiving alert campaigns from the authorities and broadcasting them in their clients’ networks.)
It is true that in the vast majority of cases, Regulators specify public warning systems based on Cell Broadcast technology only. In some others, there are systems that use SMS as the medium for alerting (although such systems are tending to be replaced) or where both Cell Broadcast and SMS are used. Deploying a Cell Broadcast system is quite a big investment for a Network Operator and it is not a service that can easily generate a revenue stream. However, if the same system supports geo-targeted SMS, MMS or USSD, it can support commercial broadcast services that help to monetize the investment (assuming of course they have no impact on the primary alerting service).
Due to customer confidentiality, we cannot list the names of our customers here but we can say that we have a broad customer base distributed right around the globe. We have deployed ABC in North America, Europe and Australasia to support Wireless Public Alerting services in very different settings, densely-populated urban areas with dense cell-site concentrations and remote continental and maritime settings where the geographic coverall of sites is much larger. ABC has no responsibility for the radio network or topography but its configuration is flexible enough to support optimizations where required.
ABC can support broadcast services on all types and generation of network 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G, even where the coverage of these networks overlap each other. Enghouse began supporting CMAS broadcast alerts on ANSI CDMA networks but ABC now supports Cell Broadcast on the most modern networks with the inclusion of our 5G CBCF in the solution.
Even if public warning campaigns are submitted to your system via the secure interface of the national authorities, it is important to be aware of when and where such campaigns are in progress. The mapping utility can display the campaign target areas graphically on screen along with KPIs. This may inform decisions to boost radio resources in affected areas. Because the coverage of say 2G and 5G networks may not exactly match, the operator can perhaps see if there is a risk of “overspill”.
Enghouse Alert Broadcast Centre (ABC) supports the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) and also both North American variants of that interface
- OASIS CAP v1.2 specified by IPAWS in the USA
- CAP-CP specified by the CRTC for the Canadian National Public Alerting System (NPAS)
These are XML based interfaces through which authorized campaign centers can submit the details of a campaign (geo-coordinates (or ID) of target area, message text, broadcast duration etc. directly to the Broadcast Centre for deliver via Cell Broadcast (or other channel).
Yes. It can be deployed as a centralized national solution or as an operator-managed system.
Yes. Public Warning systems, thankfully, are not needed most of the time. To monetize the investment in them some operators opt to use them for commercial broadcast campaigns (mostly SMS and MMS) when they are not handling emergency campaigns. However, it is recommended to suspend any such campaigns when a genuine emergency campaign is in progress.
