FCC votes to upgrade emergency smartphone alerts

[Randy Jennings]

The FCC voted Thursday to allow texts sent through the wireless emergency system to include links to pictures, maps and phone numbers.

It's a significant improvement for the four-year-old system, which allows authorities to ping phones to alert people to severe weather, missing children and other danger.

The agency also voted to allow longer messages -- 360 characters, up from 90 -- and to require wireless providers to support Spanish-language alerts.

Wireless carriers will be allowed to support embedded links later this year. They'll be required to next year.

Full story at: http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/29/technology/fcc-wireless-emergency-alerts/index.html

 

[rdale]

This will not start in the next year - this will be a 3 to 5 year (at the quickest) process.