OCTOBER 4th: National “Emergency Alert” Day

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On Wednesday at 11:20 am and 2:20 pm 2023, Eastern, most Americans will simultaneously feel their cellphones vibrate, hear them make a loud sound and see a push alert pop up on their screens. Most radio and television stations will broadcast an alert at the same time for about one minute.

It’s a test of the national emergency alert systems, which are designed to let the government reach hundreds of millions of people in the United States immediately if there is a disaster affecting the entire country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Federal Communications Commission are conducting the coordinated test to see if the technology is working as designed and if any improvements are needed.

The sound is a unique tone that probably will interrupt classes and meetings, reveal the locations of hidden phones, and jar anyone not expecting it. The test itself is already leading to baseless conspiracy theories about how the powerful communication tool could be abused.

There is no national emergency, no reason to panic and nothing you need to do about the alerts.

It is, as the text will say, just a test.

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America’s embarrassing digital divide

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An FCC rule change could falsely obscure America’s embarrassing digital divide

[By MIT Technology Review]

FCC chairman Ajit Pai has a theory. He reckons that Internet access on a phone is as good as high-speed broadband access at home.

Now he’s looking into changing his agency’s guidelines, so that places in the U.S. with decent mobile coverage are deemed “connected,” even if broadband access is a no-go. If enacted, the sleight of hand could shrink America’s embarrassing digital divide, but would leave rural folks with tight data caps, low speeds, and less hope for ever getting broadband.

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