OTTAWA – It could be this time next year before Canada’s new mobile emergency alert system is tested again on a wide scale as the players involved in last week’s failed tests figure out what went wrong.
As an Amber Alert sounded for a missing boy in Ontario on Monday, officials said the warning system is up and running, but public expectations that all compatible devices connected to a wireless network should receive alerts may be too high.
The system, which was supposed to be fully operational nationwide under regulator orders by April 6, was put to the test across most of the country last week.
READ MORE: Amber Alert cancelled after 8-year-old boy in Gorham Township found safe
The first test, on Monday in Quebec, didn’t sound at all due to a coding error, which the system operator said was fixed within a couple of hours.
Later that day, some test alerts were heard and felt on mobile devices in Ontario, but many wireless subscribers didn’t receive any signals.
On Wednesday, testing conducted in Atlantic Canada appeared to go as hoped while there was sporadic success across western provinces as well as in Yukon and Northwest Territories.
Pelmorex, the company that operates the Alert Ready system, said while expectations for the test results may have been high, those involved in conducting the live tests learned valuable lessons.
“If everyone thought their phone was going to go off, maybe there was an expectation there that wasn’t met,” said Paul Temple, the company’s senior vice president of regulatory and strategic affairs.
“But in terms of the technical aspects (of the tests), I think it was exactly what we needed to do.”
READ MORE: Cellphones, tablets to sound off across Canada for emergency alert testing
The company, which also owns The Weather Network, said it confirmed all of the alert test messages it distributed were successfully transmitted to wireless, or so-called “last mile” service providers.
“In Ontario and all the tests on Wednesday, we got acknowledgment messages back from all of the carriers that they had received the test messages,” said Temple.
The CRTC ordered wireless providers to implement the system to distribute warnings of imminent safety threats, including severe weather, such as tornadoes and floods, as well as terrorist threats and Amber Alerts.
A similar system in the United States made headlines earlier this year when an emergency official in Hawaii mistakenly sent an alert about a potential incoming ballistic missile. Human error and inadequate safeguards were blamed for the false alarm.
In most provinces and territories, Pelmorex provides a platform that emergency officials use to create alert messages. Pelmorex then delivers the alerts to TV, radio, cable, satellite and wireless providers.
READ MORE: Canadians to receive mobile emergency alert test this week: Here’s what to know
But the company has no way of knowing whether the service providers actually distribute the messages, except for what it sees or hears being broadcast.
Everything is automated and is supposed to take just a few seconds once the alert messages are written and delivered.
Testing is conducted frequently on internal platforms, but it’s only during the live tests when officials can determine that the system is performing as it should.
The CRTC requires that live-to-public testing be conducted annually, although there’s nothing preventing such tests sooner.
But mobile service providers will need time to gather the information they require to properly make changes before the next set of tests, said Temple.
“There are so many different manufacturers, models within manufacturers, software, upgrades that may or may not have been loaded and user settings,” he said.
READ MORE: Mobile emergency alerts launch in Canada on April 6
“Collectively, the carriers are going to have to sit down and analyze and better understand why one phone might receive (an alert) and one phone might not. At a minimum, we’ve got to give the carriers time to sort through how the various cellphones behaved on the tests that just took place.”
In the meantime, if there was a real emergency warranting an alert, the system is activated, even if many devices might still not receive an alert signal, he said.
“If there was a threat-to-life warning, the carriers are connected and they would get that message and pass it on to whatever the area is that is affected by the incident.”
In fact, devices buzzed and sounded for an Amber Alert Monday in Ontario, although it wasn’t known whether all devices that were supposed to receive it actually did.
The alert was issued by Ontario Provincial Police and later cancelled after an eight-year-old boy missing in the Thunder Bay region was found safe.
The Canadian Press
GORHAM TOWNSHIP, Ont. -- A child who was the subject of an Amber Alert in northern Ontario was found 30 kilometres from where he went missing on Monday as police continued to search for his mother.
Ontario Provincial Police said the eight-year-old boy, first reported missing from Gorham Township at 9 a.m. Monday, was located roughly three hours later at a Tim Hortons in Thunder Bay, Ont.
Sgt. Shelley Garr said the Amber Alert was issued because the child was believed to be in danger at the time. She offered no word on the boy's condition but said he has been taken into protective custody.
Garr said the child went missing in the company of his mother, who police are still trying to locate.
She said it was not known whether the woman is on foot or still driving the vehicle listed in the original alert.
"She's still out there and we're actively looking for her, " Garr said, adding there is no reason to believe the woman poses a risk to the public.
The Canadian Press
GORHAM TOWNSHIP, Ont. -- A child who was the subject of an Amber Alert in northern Ontario was found 30 kilometres from where he went missing on Monday as police continued to search for his mother.
Ontario Provincial Police said the eight-year-old boy, first reported missing from Gorham Township at 9 a.m. Monday, was located roughly three hours later at a Tim Hortons in Thunder Bay, Ont.
Sgt. Shelley Garr said the Amber Alert was issued because the child was believed to be in danger at the time. She offered no word on the boy's condition but said he has been taken into protective custody.
Garr said the child went missing in the company of his mother, who police are still trying to locate.
She said it was not known whether the woman is on foot or still driving the vehicle listed in the original alert.
"She's still out there and we're actively looking for her, " Garr said, adding there is no reason to believe the woman poses a risk to the public.
Remember last week when safety officials promised to "test" the national emergency alert system on every mobile phone in Ontario at the same time?
Most of us were ready for a jarring beep or lengthy vibration at 1:55 p.m. last Monday, just like we were warned to be. And yet, most of us didn't receive anything at all, ever. Not from AlertReady.
It was kind of a let down, to be honest.
Did you get the test emergency text alert in #Ontario? #AlertReady — blogTO (@blogTO) May 7, 2018
In the absence of a test alert on May 7, some Ontarians were left to wonder if the system even worked.
Then they wondered about other things, moved on with their lives, and maybe even forgot about Monday's half-failed alert test altogether.
That changed this morning when, around 11:35 a.m., a chilling "air raid siren" rang out through offices, homes and public spaces all over the province.
So in a meeting and 20 phones go off simultaneously with the new alert system. Scared the hell out of us but got our attention for the #AmberAlert.
But worth noting that only personal phones got the alert. OPS work phones didn't. — Kristin Taylor (@kristinlisa) May 14, 2018
The emergency warning was to notify everyone in Ontario of an Amber Alert for 8-year-old Gabriel McCallum, who was last seen in Gorham Township (near Thunder Bay).
WOW THAT #AMBERALERT. It should NOT make that noise! My involuntary impulse was just to make it stop, so there is no way I read/retained it before closing it. I did take a screencap though in case anyone else also closed it without thinking. pic.twitter.com/1eQ0USao77 — Audra Marie Williams (@audrawilliams) May 14, 2018
It wasn't the type of tone we're used to hearing from our smartphones, especially every phone in the room at once, which made it kind of scary (though I guess that's the point.)
CAN CONFIRM THE EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM NOW WORKS ON CELL PHONES *clutches chest* — dai in revolt 🇨🇦🇨🇴 (@daibyday) May 14, 2018
People who were speaking on the phone at the time had their conversations interrupted, briefly, by the alert, while others jumped up and looked around like "WTF?"
They need to change the notification sounds for the #emergencyalert . An amber alert, as important as it is, should not have the same alarm as an incoming nuke. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. — 🌙💖 @ ANIME NORTH (@sailormoron) May 14, 2018
The phrase "Amber Alert" was trending on Twitter locally within minutes as Ontarians expressed shock and, in some cases, frustration.
Onatrio has decided to fold Amber Alerts for the *entire province* into its push notification Emergency Alert system.
I've received two Amber Alerts today for Thunder Bay, which is 15 hours away from Toronto by car.
Congrats, you have trained me to ignore Emergency Alerts. — Molly Sauter (@OddLetters) May 14, 2018
A second alert for the same case come through around noon, this time in French.
Again, people were startled. Did I mention that this alert sounds exactly like the Cold War-Era nuclear missile warnings we've been seeing in movies our entire lives?
I wish this amber alert didn’t make me almost crash more then once as it’s quite loud and scary for your phone to keep going off. I think one amber alert on my phone is just fine. need to fix the system so that it doesn’t keep alerting people excessively — xox.scarlett.love (@xoxscarlettlov1) May 14, 2018
And that it's super loud?
Just got an amber alert at full volume and nearly shit my pants. Unreal! I hate this. I'm all for locating missing children but the air raid siren just made half the office spill their coffee. pic.twitter.com/1x3DY5QjBG — which side are ya on (@hoverbeaver) May 14, 2018
Well, I think it's safe to say that the alert system works, even if some people aren't happy about the way it works.
Ontario police using the new alert ready system every 10 minutes for the same amber alert? I appreciate missing children are an important concern, but overuse of alert ready system will lead to user ignoring disaster scale warnings. #emergencyalert #usesparingly @OntarioPolice — roelvertegaal (@roelvertegaal) May 14, 2018
Police say that anyone who sees Gabriel MCCallum or Lynda McCallum, the person believed to have taken him, should call 9-1-1.
Update: The Amber Alert issued in Thunder Bay, ON was cancelled around 12:45 p.m. Monday. Police say the child has been located.
