On Thu, 26 Jul 2018, Seth Mattinen wrote:
On 7/26/18 9:51 AM, Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG wrote:
Capitalist solution: Build yet another IoT device that just does emergency alerting.
People in tornado areas seem to be the most aware that alert radios already exist. No internet access required.
I remember 15 years ago, when the cellular carriers argued they shouldn't be required to build emergency notifications into cell phones (I know OEM make the phones). The carriers said it was unneccessary because of alternative ways to notify the public about emergencies, i.e. radio, outdoor sirens, etc. About 2% to 5% of households have weather alert radios. The 5% is in severe weather (tornado) areas, the rest of the country is less. But catastrophes aren't limited to particular severe weather areas. If we knew where fires would start, we would only put smoke detectors in those places. About 18% (and growing) of households have smart speakers, and about 58% of households have a "connected" device of some kind. The number of households with working am/fm radios is 71% (and declining). Younger generations (15 to 39-year olds) are even less likely to have working am/fm radios in the home (43%). If you are listening to a local radio station streaming over a smart speaker, the streaming channel usually has different ads than the over-the-air radio broadcast and does not include emergency notifications. Televisions households haven't declined as much. However, about 11% of "smart" televisions now are only used for over-the-top internet programming. In other words, 11% of unconnected "smart" televisions do not have a cable coax or an over-the-air antenna connected, and would not get any emergency notifications. If the product managers for smart speakers and smart TVs are successful, and replace am/fm radios and cable/over-the-air TVs in households, eventually there will be a catastrophe. After the catstrophe, the public (and politicians) will likely ask why didn't they get a emergency warning from their smart speakers and smart TVs like they used to get from their old am/fm radios and old TVs?