FEMA and FCC Plan Nationwide Emergency Alert Test for Oct. 4, 2023

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I wonder how this works technically? and to what extent it taxes the bandwidth of the system / backhaul / towers / channels?

Is it:

Cell tower: "Every phone currently connected to this tower -- display this message now "

or

Cell tower: "subscriber 202-555-1212 known to be connected to this tower, display this message now " , "subscriber 202-555-1213 known to be connected to this tower, display this message now ", etc...

or

AT&T central: "deliver to AT&T subscriber 202-555-1212 special text message ", "deliver to AT&T subscriber 202-555-1213 special text message ", etc...

or

FEMA central: "deliver to mobile subscriber 202-555-1212 special text message ", "deliver to mobile subscriber 202-555-1213 special text message ", etc...

Is it like a loudspeaker or a high priority special messaging channel?

I have no idea but I would guess there were choices about whether to optimize for speed of delivery versus guaranteeing that every single phone would get the message. And does the alert get stored for phones that weren't on? Or you only get it if your phone happened to be on and connected at the time of the alert or within 1 minute of it? How do they tell whether a phone received the command, or should try again?

Ah, thanks that explains it -- (follow the link also for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Emergency_Alerts )

We had a national test in Norway that mostly worked OK a few months ago. But then they wanted to use it in a real emergency in early August(some specific areas were about to be flooded due to heavy rain) and that didn’t work as well. First of all cell phones way out of the flood area were getting emergency messages, some of these got several messages in different languages and different wording over several days. It was very strange. I’m way out of the flood area and got 4 messages during 25 hours. But my wife got 0. We have the same phone and same provider. A long way to say that this system should be tested in a “production” setting as well.

In germany we now have a "Warntag" [literally "Warn day"], which is scheduled to be once per Year in September.

This is mostly a result of a previous test, which revealed that in case of a catastrophe, most germans would not be warned (Sirens not functioning, cell broadcast was not used, ...)

Sadly the website of our Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance is not translating every page to english. https://www.bbk.bund.de/DE/Warnung-Vorsorge/Bundesweiter-War...