Rude awakening for O2 customers after network runs surprise test of emergency mobile alert system

Birds chirping, the gentle burbling of coffee brewing – these are the sounds we typically associate with the dawn hours. Everyone, that is, except customers of O2, who arose this morning to a noise described as akin to a "nuclear siren" after the network performed an unannounced test of the UK's emergency alert system. The …

[Boris the Cockroach]

To be honest

If I got that message.. I'd say simply "Thank god I dont have to put up with any more work related shit", walk outside , sit down, and await the sunshine.

Then spend the rest of the day angry as f*** because I wasn't dead.

Icon... yupp

[Shadow Systems]

Re: To be honest

No fair! You would be the only one to survive the event! You bastard! Waaaahhhhh hahahaha...

*Hands you a pint*

Drink up, I'll leave out a box of Twinkies for you to feast on after we're all gone. =-Jp

[tip pc]

Re: To be honest

You’ve had my year too!!

[Strahd Ivarius]

Re: To be honest

It reminds me of this...

Vamos a la playa

(have the lyrics translated if you don't understand Spanish)

[katrinab]

I did not receive such a message on my phone. Merely a push notification from Citymapper saying that the train network is completely TITSUP. Should I be concerned?

[JetSetJim]

My work phone is on O2 and received no such alert. Suspect the warning was perhaps geographically restricted or only sent to customers on particular types of contracts?

[ThatOne]

> My work phone is on O2 and received no such alert

Nobody said the system is working flawlessly...

[Strahd Ivarius]

Only the proper people get a warning.

Who cares about the plebe???

[JetSetJim]

Much as I appreciate the value you ascribe to me, if Cell Broadcast doesn't get received by every phone that's switched on inside coverage, then there's a fundamental flaw in either the network configuration, or the s/w implementation of the feature, or some numpty hasn't turned it on properly on the infrastructure.

Or, they weren't testing it in the area I was - it's tied to individual bits of the network and the hierarchy underneath. So perhaps they just prodded a single 4G MME (or even 3G RNC) to initiate this?

[VBF]

Merely OOI..... I'm on Tesco Mobile and didn't receive the alert either. On checking my Settings I found that "Alert reminder" was OFF.

[Robert Carnegie]

Nothing seen on my phone, I may have slept through it and/or it disappears after a time. I'm in Scotland and on Pay When You Go.

[Jamesit]

When Rogers sent a test alert they warned us a couple of days in advance to let us know the date and time.

[JetSetJim]

Did they do that by sending an alert?

[David 132]

Nice idea, usually ruined by overuse

Here in Oregon, I used to have the government & AMBER alerts enabled on my phone. But after the second time of getting woken at 3AM by an ear-splitting siren and an alert along the lines of “MISSING CHILD POSSIBLY ABDUCTED, IN VICINITY OF BOISE IDAHO” (clue: Boise is about 500 miles away, so obviously it’s vital to wake everyone in a 1000-mile radius and give them a coronary) I switched them off. If the clueless chucklefucks who operate the system had only learned from “the boy who cried wolf”…

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Nice idea, usually ruined by overuse

We have worse here - it's done at the province (ie state) level - with provinces the size of european countries.

So kid snatched by divorced parent on the border of another state, where his whole family live - and they don't put announcements in that province but alert me 1000mi and 2 ferries away.

It's like a Scottish dad snatching his kid in Berwick and and they don't put out an alert in Scotland but everyones phone in Jersey rings.

[DS999]

It is also because they are stupid

If they allowed phones to have them work as a notification that only comes up when you next unlock your device I think a lot more people would enable them. It would be simple to have them "withdrawn" if the reason for it has expired by the time you unlock your phone.

What good is it to wake people up with an Amber Alert? What am I going to do about it when I'm in bed? What am I going to do about it when I'm in a meeting?

The only time it does any good is when I'm driving or otherwise out and about. They should be blocked when you're on your home or work network, because they are 100% useless to deliver to anyone at that time.

[jake]

Re: It is also because they are stupid

The last Amber Alert I received was at about noon local time. A child had been kidnapped in Indio, half the state away (I'm in Sonoma, call it 470 air miles). The evening news the night before had reported that the child had been found that afternoon, in the same city she was kidnapped in. That was a couple years ago. I haven't seen such an alert since ... not on my phone, anyway. I see them on the television news periodically.

Potentially, it's a useful tool. However, as with most technology related tools, it is utterly useless in the hands of those with the power to use it.

[ThatOne]

Re: Nice idea, usually ruined by overuse

> If the clueless chucklefucks who operate the system had only learned from “the boy who cried wolf”…

So true. I too had them enabled, but after the umpteenth useless message in a couple months I disabled them. I'm more than willing to do my part, but in this case it only means getting spammed by clearly irrelevant messages at the most inappropriate times.

I'm wondering if anybody at all still listens to those messages by now: It was a useful tool, but totally wrecked by clueless bureaucrats.

[Andy Non]

They need to make the text alert louder

I couldn't hear it over the noise of the nuclear explosions outside.

[Anonymous Coward]

The text – which was also received by customers of MVNOs that use O2's network in Britain, including Giffgaff,

Nope. Didn't get one. So...either this is incorrect, or the system is unreliable. Hmm.

[David 132]

Maybe the nuclear apocalypse only happened in some parts of the country, and your area was spared?

I mean, there are parts of the UK - and I am deliberately not going to name them, so feel free to think of your own according to individual prejudice - where the inhabitants are already living in a ruined lawless dystopia, and the Russians wouldn't want to waste their very expensive missiles...

[Anonymous Coward]

Grew up in Sheffield in the 80s.

They filmed Threads here because the only set dressing needed was to clean the place up a bit for the post-apocalypse scenes

[IGotOut]

It's like the one I heard.

Dudley is a not on the list of targets due to the amount of improvements it may cause.

[Doctor Syntax]

Turn phone off or leave it downstairs, then go to bed without the possibility of the damn thing waking you up.

Not on O2 so the only thing I missed was a call from a bloke from Yorkshire Water having trouble locating one of their holes in the road in relation to my house because their GIS has had the wrong house name ever since they downloaded it from PAF. PAF was corrected about 20 years ago.

Of course if GIS says it's so it must be right. So that wasn't one of their unmarked water mains that appeared in a hole they dug last year. The excuse that time was that it must be an old dead main despite the fact that the leaking pipe went underneath it and the connection it makes with the live water main dates back to the mid to late '50s.

[John Brown (no body)]

"Turn phone off or leave it downstairs, then go to bed without the possibility of the damn thing waking you up."

Mine gets plugged in at night, by the back door. Anyone who needs me in a real emergency has my landline number and that phone is by the the bed.

[Pascal Monett]

"Cell Broadcast is not affected by traffic load"

After reading this article I was curious, I'd never heard about this technology before.

So I looked it up.

It is so reassuring to know that, when I'm desperately trying to call for help, my phone will be able to blare at me that I may be in trouble.

[doublelayer]

Interesting accent choice

I listened to the video, mostly because I wanted to hear how piercing the alarm was (spoiler, it's not even in the video). However, while listening, I found it a little strange that the system is using an American accent when reading out the message. The system is perfectly able to imitate received pronunciation and still sound simultaneously angry and bored, so maybe Android should use that when the user is in the UK.

[David 132]

Re: Interesting accent choice

Obviously, it should be Pam Ayres' voice!

(Icon chosen as an example of someone who probably wishes he'd looked after his teeth.)

[jake]

Re: Interesting accent choice

Oi'd be shattar'd, muthur ...

[KarMann]

Re: Interesting accent choice

That's probably the voice you have the option to choose the accent for, and the gender. Being a Yank living in the UK, I probably paid a bit more attention to those options than most. But anyway, that US accent is probably on the phone's owner, then, unless this broadcast overrides that option because $REASONS (or @reason, for the perl-inclined, at least).

[Gavin Burnett]

Got a better test message

How about:

"This is a test of the emergency brodcast system. This is only a test. If this had been a real emergency, your phone would have melted by now."

[Conundrum1885]

Re. Got a better test message

"THIS IS NOT A TEST. GLOBAL EMP SURGE CAUSED BY CARRINGTON PLUS LEVEL CME EVENT INCOMING, ARRIVAL IN T-47 MINUTES"

Yeah thats one you'd never *ever* want to see.

Also this one.

"MACHINE UPRISING. TURN OFF ALL ACTIVE DEVICES THAT CAN BE USED FOR TRACKING AND TAKE SHELTER FROM INBOUND KILLER ROBOTS"

[ARGO]

Self inflicted

The alert was sent on the test channel - you have to go into the phone menus to enable that, so the people complaining about being woken up have only themselves to blame.

[AndersH]

Re: Self inflicted

Seems like a reasonable explanation, how do you know this?

Is it linked to this? https://flood-warning-information.service.gov.uk/cell-broadcast-trial

[ItsMeDammit]

Re: Self inflicted

On my Android phone I go to "Settings" then "Notifications" and "Wireless Emergency Alerts".

Under that I have the following options:

Allow alerts

AMBER alerts (child abduction emergency)

Extreme threats (life and property).

Severe threats (life and property)

Public Safety messages

Required monthly test

Then preferences to vibrate on receipt, speak out the alert and opt out on receipt of a first message.

I doubt that some of these are rarely if ever used in the UK. I didn't get the message mentioned in the article but I can see how I might have done. All of mine are off by default.

I hope this clears up any confusion that the downvoters to ARGON's post may have had.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Self inflicted

On my Android phone I go to "Settings" then "Notifications" and "Wireless Emergency Alerts".

Is this only on the latest version(s) of Android? Mine doesn't have ""Wireless Emergency Alerts". It says the Android version is 9, and patch level is 1 Sept. 2020 and "Your software is up to date" as of 2 minutes ago.

[ItsMeDammit]

Re: Self inflicted

Android 9, 1st April 2020. It may be that your provider (if you obtained your phone through one) or even the manufacturer thought you could not be trusted with the power !!

Incidentally my phone is a Moto G6.

[ThatOne]

Re: Self inflicted

> It may be that your provider

That's the problem with Android: Unfortunately it's a huge mess, and normal users have no way to fix it.

I once bought a (Samsung) phone direct, and a family member bought a couple days later the exact same phone model through a carrier. Surprise, they didn't have the same software! And I'm not talking about the carrier bloatware, the base Samsung OS was different, and many features didn't work the same way or were missing. And obviously there wasn't much we could do.

So, concerning your "network notifications settings" feature, it might exist on some phones, but you definitely can't assume it's universal (or even common).

[tinker]

Re: Self inflicted

I've got similar on my android phone too (under Settings > Security > Emergency Alerts Settings here) and mine are all on, apparently by default as I didn't turn them on myself.

Didn't get the alert mentioned in the article though, despite being on Sky Mobile.

[rskurat]

Artificial Ineptitude

I've got to remember that for future emails & tweets: "asterisk, asterisk, asterisk"

[Robert Carnegie]

BBC seems to be reporting this this is going to be tested on a couple of dates later in May and June 2021. So what - if anything - was it that just happened?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57145675