Re: U.S. test of national alerts on Oct. 4 at 2:20pm EDT (1820 UTC)

[Aaron de Bruyn via NANOG <nanog () nanog org>]

I was kinda surprised that none of my NOAA weather radios went off. I sorta assumed they'd be tied into the whole 
"national" alert setup.

Why interrupt cell phones, AM/FM radio stations, and TV stations, but exclude NOAA weather radios?

-A

On Sun Oct 1, 2023, 10:24 PM GMT, Sean Donelan <mailto:sean () donelan com> wrote:
> This year's test of the U.S. national emergency alert includes something
> for ISPs and network operators.
>
> The wireless portion of the national test is scheduled 2 minutes (2:18pm
> EDT or 1818 UTC) before the main broadcast test at 2:20. Mobile phones
> usually receive the alert about a minute later. Radio and TV will receive
> the national alert a few minutes after 2:20pm.
>
> iPhone iOS 17 added a new feature for Wireless Emergency Alerts. When iOS
> 17 iPhones get a wireless emergency alert (WEA), it will trigger a data
> network query for additional information. Its a small query and
> response, but there are a lot of iPhones making the query at the same
> time (I'm assuming Apple engineer's have built in some time skew).
>
> Apple has assured FEMA that Apple's CDN and servers will be able to handle
> the triggered load.
>
> The iOS 17 triggered query will either be a tiny blip in the network
> graphs around 2:18pm to 2:22pm which no one will notice, or some CDNs and
> ISP operators will be wondering what that heck that spike was.
>
> If your phone is configured with Spanish, it will display the alert in
> both English and Spanish.
>
> “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is
> needed.”
>
> “ESTA ES UNA PRUEBA del Sistema Nacional de Alerta de Emergencia. No se
> necesita acción.”
>
> You'll know your iOS17 device did an extra data query, if it displays a
> longer message (extra sentences) in addition to the messages above.
>
> "This is only a test. No action is required by the public."
>
>
> https://www.fema.gov/press-release/20230803/fema-and-fcc-plan-nationwide-emergency-alert-test-oct-4-2023