[General Topics] dandv:
US government mandates special "emergency alerts" chip in all cell phones by 2012

Yet another Big Brother measure destined to shove presidential messages to every cell phone user, eat battery juice, and add to the phone's cost:

Below is a summary I cobbled together from the scarce information provided by the FCC here and here, and from press coverage.

The service is called "Personal Localized Alerting Network" or "PLAN" (technically called the "Commercial Mobile Alert System") and is scheduled to be available in New York by the end of 2011 and throughout the United States by April 2012, as a consequence of the Warning, Alert and Response Network (WARN) Act passed by Congress in 2006, which allocated $106 million to fund the program[1].

All new phones will be required to have the special chip, and according to AT&T spokesman Robert Quinn, some iPhones and Android phones already have it. It is confirmed that the Droid X (released in June 2010) does support PLAN and has a special "Emergency Alerts" app. Although this means the chip has been out there for at least one year, there is no precise list of which phones have the chips.

Carriers that will participate ahead of schedule are AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. The alerts will be text-like messages of 90 characters or less, and they'll be geographically targeted using GPS technology (does this mean that the chip will send your location continuously?). Alerts will be accompanied by a unique attention signal and vibration (helpful to people with hearing or vision disabilities). The PLAN alert will appear as a pop-up text, different from regular text messages. PC World reported that the alerts "eventually might include audio and video content".

Alerts will be pushed via wireless carrier cell towers, but are designed to not suffer from the congestion that can affect regular SMS text messages.

The CMAS Third Report and Order mentions that cost recovery is left as a decision for carriers: they may choose to absorb the costs themselves, or pass them on to customers.

Phones that already have the PLAN technology

* Motorola Droid X (sources)

* Sanyo Innuendo (source: Sprint spokesperson Crystal Davis, 571-288-6806, crystal.davisATsprint.com via Business Wire)

* Sanyo Vera (source: as above)

* Sprint "plans to launch more PLAN-capable mobile devices later this year, and include PLAN technology in all new Sprint phones by the end of 2011." (source: as above)

Has anyone heard of this? It's been 3 weeks since the news was out and I haven't seen any followup in the media. The technical information is also extremely scarce. A few questions can be raised.

Concerns with the PLAN chip

UPDATE: see a comment from reddit, which addresses most of these issues.

1. Why is there so little precise technical information on a measure that will affect every single phone manufactured since 2012?

2. The cited reason for having an extra chip embedded in each cell phone is that the current SMS infrastructure can get congested in times of emergency. However, PLAN still uses wireless carrier cell towers to push messages (as opposed to a different frequency, like the ones used for radio clock synchronization or GPS). The GSM standard already supports Cell Broadcast (CB) messaging. This FCC paper from 2007 states that "Cell broadcast is already resident in most network infrastructure and in most phones, so there is no need to build any towers, lay any cable, write any software, or replace terminals". What is the exact justification of the extra chip? If the existence of the chip is a misunderstanding of the media, then why don't existing phones work with the system already? Why do we need new phones that are "PLAN-capable"?

3. Why limit the system to 90 characters of text, instead of relying on the existing multimedia message infrastructure, which can be used to send, for example, such critical information as a photo of an evacuation map? Also, the system is not backward compatible with the over 300 million mobile phones already in place in the United States, while using SMS is (more on these issues). It will take a few years (5?) for all phones to support PLAN. How many lives will be lost in the meantime? SMS is available now. Also, old people, the ones most likely to be affected by certain kinds of emergencies, tend to use very simple phones and to be very late adopters of new technology. Their phones do support SMS though.

4. Does the technology use GPS, as BBC mentions? The battery drain and surveillance implications are major.

5. Users can't opt out of “Presidential” messages. What safeguards are in place that would prevent an oppressive government from abusing this technology?

6. The design of the system is not available. How can the users know that it won't be abused? The chip could be programmed to snap a picture from the phone's camera, or to covertly record audio, upon receiving a certain signal. Remote activation of a phone's microphone has already been done by the FBI using the so-called roving bug.

7. What is to prevent the government-required software from receiving a certain signal or message which would disable the cell phone or its Internet access (useful in times of civil unrest, as has been seen in the Arab Spring revolts)?

8. Will rooting phones or custom ROMs become illegal, especially if one modifies the function of how the PLAN network interacts with the smartphone?

Sources and media coverage

The only first-hand press coverage I've seen dates from May 10-11, and there's been nothing since.

* National Emergency Alert System Set To Launch In NYC, with audio from the announcement. 800+ users comments, mostly against the idea. "For now, the alerts are capable on certain high-end cell phones but starting next year, all cell phones will be required to have the chip that receives alerts."

* Engadget - text of the press release. "Participating carriers are including PLAN chips in their new phones, and many recently purchased phones already have the chip and only will require a software upgrade."

* Wired: Bloomberg, FEMA, FCC Detail NYC Emergency Notification System: "The assembled wireless-company executives, including AT&T CEO Randall L. Stephenson and Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, pledged their support for the system and said new devices will be equipped with a PLAN chip. [...] a list of compatible phones would be posted soon on the FCC’s website [...] Officials didn’t go into detail about the technical specifications of the new network."

* PC World: FCC Calls for Mobile Alert System (2008): "The alerts initially would be text only, though with vibration and audio signals for people with disabilities. They eventually might include audio and video content." (confirmed at FCC's site)

* MacDailyNews: U.S. gov’t mandates special chip in all cellphones; users can’t opt out of presidential messages: "It will use GPS technology and will send some of the alerts based on the location of the phone user."

* Daily Mail UK: Don't write off a text message from the president as a prank: It's an emergency and he might just save your life...: "A special chip is required to allow the phone to receive the messages"

* NY Times: Emergency Alert System Expected for Cellphones: "special chip [...] is currently included in some higher-end smartphones like the latest iPhones"

* USA Today: Cellphones get emergency alerts: "Some current cellphones, including some iPhones and some Android phones, already have the circuitry required to receive PLAN alerts. The iPhones that have the capacity to get alerts, says AT&T's Robert Quinn, will require software modifications. New AT&T phones due out in October will be PLAN-ready."

* NY Post: "Officials said at least three models already have the chip: the Droid X, the iPhone 4 and the Innuendo." The emergency alert feature and app (which can't be uninstalled) are confirmed on the Droid X. Note that the Droid X was released in July 2010.

* BBC: Mobile phone emergency alert system to launch in US: "Mr Bloomberg unveiled the Personal Localized Alerting Network, or Plan, on Tuesday, explaining that the system will implemented through a special chip installed on new mobile phones. The system works through GPS technology and will send some of the alerts based on a user's location."

* AFP: US alert system targets mobile phones: "The alerts will be text-like messages of 90 characters or less."

* Associated Press: Cellphone alert system announced in NYC: "A special chip is required to allow the phone to receive the messages. Some smartphones already have the chip, and software updates will be available when the network goes online later this year."

* FEMA page - no technical details, and nothing beyond what the press said

* slashdot and reddit

Specs

CMAS/PLAN specs I dug up. They seem to indicate that Cell Broadcasts will be used, but all specs are paywalled from $125 and up.