JS
No worries, that makes a lot of sense. And happy to help in any way I can.
Do you see a future path, in alerts with other Safety concerns? Or are you able to share/expound on that realm?
Like, riots, or borders shut down, anything that the Dept of state would send alerts for?
They can send texts/emails, but not sure if there is a way to integrate it into your system. And as you said, as of now* that its US and Canada. So probably not all that helpful specifically to those two countries.
Food for thought,
And thank you for being so on it, and willing to let us pick your brain about the system, and generally throw random ideas and thoughts your way.
Engaging with you and our users is critical to providing a service that meets or exceeds your needs and expectations. So, we are here to listen and exchange ideas.
We are also really interested in any suggestions about the information you’d like delivered to you using Adiona Alert.
I’m all ears!
Now, let me try to give you (and the rest of this community
) a glimpse behind the curtain of public alerting and where we are going.
As I mentioned, we are focused on the U.S. and Canada. In both countries, in addition to the weather alerts, we monitor a secure system that thousands of public safety, law enforcement and other agencies can use to deliver alerts to the public. The network exists to distribute alerts through media outlets, TV, radio, highway information signs, etc.
As a result, many agencies are already using this network to communicate alerts regarding law enforcement activity, drinking water advisories, electricity supply messages, etc.
This is also the network these agencies could use to communicate nuclear incident warnings, “civil disturbances,” etc.
The key here is COULD, and it would depend on decisions taken by the agency having jurisdiction to use this communication network. Some agencies throughout Canada and the U.S. already use the network, while others are still developing their understanding and use.
As our user base grows, we will be working to educate agencies who have traditionally not used these alerting networks because they understood that the network couldn’t deliver the alerts in remote areas since there are no cellular coverage or electronic road signs
.
We are extending the reach of these alerts to remote areas, and therefore, they will now be able to use the same system used in “on-grid” areas to reach “off-grid” users.
That work will take some time, and our “leverage” will grow as our user base grows.
More broadly, this public alerting system type is based on international standards. Like most international standards, this is a voluntary framework developed and used mainly by countries in the developed world. And, as with most international standards, they are never quite as “standard” as they should or we’d like them to be.
The U.S. and Canada are some of the most aligned countries collaborating and using this international standard, and it has taken us well over two years to figure out all the unique implementation of this international standard
.
We are working with several partners to deliver the alerts we provide today and other partners for the alerts we plan to introduce later this year and in the future.
The real challenge is to find reliable and trustworthy partners whom we can integrate using a secure network. Unfortunately, there are a lot of players who redistribute “open source” information, in some cases with limited vetting, either for free or for a fee. It’s even more challenging in remote areas where the commercial interest or profit to offer this type of information is limited or completely absent.
As a result, we are cautious about the sources of information we use!
I’m always happy to continue this conversation here or personally.
J.S.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro