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Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

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Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#81

Post by yodelshady »

mschuster91 wrote: post #43
taejo wrote: post #13

Correction to the article: the annual test day will be the second Thursday in September, not always the tenth. I don't understand why Cell Broadcast is not used. Surely many people don't have the app installed? I'd never heard of it and I've lived in this country the whole time it's been available.

> I don't understand why Cell Broadcast is not used Because of utterly dumb people in charge: https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/warntag-zum-ziv... > Unger: Ja, die Niederlande zum Beispiel setzen auf dieses Cell-Broadcast-System. Wir haben davon Abstand genommen, weil die Mobilfunknetze - wie man etwa an Silvester sieht - im Fall der Fälle nicht ausreichen. Hinzu kommt ein datenschutzrechtliches Problem. W…

What? It's a broadcast system. You stuff the packets into the antenna with as many watts as you can. Add a public key if you must.

Why is it checking who gets the message?

Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#82

Post by mattmanser »

mschuster91 wrote: post #56
Grumbledour wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow German, I can understand the anger, though. Basically, we don't have a warning system anymore, because the pieces that are left are mostly being dismantled (sirens, tv and radio) and all they seem to want to replace it with is an app that doesn't reliably work when the network is fine. Lets be honest, if catastrophy should strike here, we would be last to know.

This x100. It's an utter catastrophe. We had a fully working siren network (at least across Western Germany), and after the end of the Cold War it all got left to rot to pieces - estimates for rebuilding it are well into the hundreds of millions of euro range. And then the whole radio clusterfuck. AM radio got totally torn down years ago to "cut costs", there's always discussions to dismantle plain old FM radio too a…

I really am struggling to understand why it's a big deal? Honestly asking, what's the thought process behind the worth of maintaing one? TV channels and radio stations will just broadcast a breaking news thing. Websites will have notices. I'm entirely unclear why you'd need an emergency broadcast system? Or place so much emphasis on its importance?

What would you use it for? And why would having one that worked over AM or even FM be worth anything? People don't buy those radios any more. What difference does it make?

What you're describing sounds like a massive white elephant that was probably worthless even in the cold war. A proverbial safety blanket.

Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#83

Post by WillYouFinish »

mxscho wrote: post #78
mschuster91 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why Cell Broadcast is not used Because of utterly dumb people in charge: https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/warntag-zum-ziv... > Unger: Ja, die Niederlande zum Beispiel setzen auf dieses Cell-Broadcast-System. Wir haben davon Abstand genommen, weil die Mobilfunknetze - wie man etwa an Silvester sieht - im Fall der Fälle nicht ausreichen. Hinzu kommt ein datenschutzrechtliches Problem. W…

> *Anmerkung der Redaktion: In einer früheren Fassung hieß es, der Bund habe wegen vermeintlicher Kapazitätsprobleme der Mobilfunknetze und aus Datenschutzgründen Abstand von einem Cell-Broadcast-System genommen. Das Bundesamt für Bevölkerungsschutz und Katastrophenhilfe hat diese Antwort nachträglich korrigiert They basically revoked this comment about capacity. The new reason is that mobile service providers don't…

If that was the truth I don’t understand how anyone would come up with the first statement, which is just to precise to be a miscommunication or whatever the reason is. That just sounds like damage control. I am really disappointed at how bad the whole test went through today. Hopefully they get everything sorted out ASAP.

Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#84

Post by kuschku »

Filligree wrote: post #49
microtonal wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need an app? In The Netherlands they use whatever emergency warning system is built-in in iOS and Android. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202743

It can't be done with an app. Those are always subject to power saving, do not disturb, etc. Any country that doesn't use cell broadcasts is doing it wrong.

It has to be both - many people don't have a mobile phone, and a landline can't easily do the same, but may have a wifi-only device.

Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#85

Post by dividedbyzero »

mattmanser wrote: post #82
mschuster91 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This x100. It's an utter catastrophe. We had a fully working siren network (at least across Western Germany), and after the end of the Cold War it all got left to rot to pieces - estimates for rebuilding it are well into the hundreds of millions of euro range. And then the whole radio clusterfuck. AM radio got totally torn down years ago to "cut costs", there's always discussions to dismantle plain old FM radio too a…

I really am struggling to understand why it's a big deal? Honestly asking, what's the thought process behind the worth of maintaing one? TV channels and radio stations will just broadcast a breaking news thing. Websites will have notices. I'm entirely unclear why you'd need an emergency broadcast system? Or place so much emphasis on its importance? What would you use it for? And why would having one that worked over…

In case of, say, fire at a chemical plant, it may be important that people downwind get notified right away, there might not be very much time to get inside, close windows etc. Same for collapsed dams, radiological accidents, that sort of thing. Sirens can do that very well. Other channels are much less reliable (people might not have a news website open on their computer, might not be looking at their phone to catch that notification, etc.)

Radio is important because it's so widespread and low-tech. Pretty much every car has a receiver that can run for ages, there are inexpensive emergency ones that can be powered by crank and solar, so even in prolonged power outages, as long as the stations remain powered, and someone in your neighbourhood has a working receiver, it's still useful and pretty low-cost, since the infrastructure is already there.

Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#86

Post by gpvos »

yodelshady wrote: post #81
mschuster91 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why Cell Broadcast is not used Because of utterly dumb people in charge: https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/warntag-zum-ziv... > Unger: Ja, die Niederlande zum Beispiel setzen auf dieses Cell-Broadcast-System. Wir haben davon Abstand genommen, weil die Mobilfunknetze - wie man etwa an Silvester sieht - im Fall der Fälle nicht ausreichen. Hinzu kommt ein datenschutzrechtliches Problem. W…

What? It's a broadcast system. You stuff the packets into the antenna with as many watts as you can. Add a public key if you must. Why is it checking who gets the message?

It is not. They should use cell broadcast, it's privacy-friendly, efficient and as reliable as anything else involving a mobile phone.

Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#87

Post by gpvos »

_Microft wrote: post #48
mschuster91 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why Cell Broadcast is not used Because of utterly dumb people in charge: https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/warntag-zum-ziv... > Unger: Ja, die Niederlande zum Beispiel setzen auf dieses Cell-Broadcast-System. Wir haben davon Abstand genommen, weil die Mobilfunknetze - wie man etwa an Silvester sieht - im Fall der Fälle nicht ausreichen. Hinzu kommt ein datenschutzrechtliches Problem. W…

Feedback: this comment might have fared better if it hadn't contained completely unnecessary insults.

Unnecessary maybe, but also a simple statement of fact.

Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#88

Post by gpvos »

mattmanser wrote: post #82
mschuster91 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This x100. It's an utter catastrophe. We had a fully working siren network (at least across Western Germany), and after the end of the Cold War it all got left to rot to pieces - estimates for rebuilding it are well into the hundreds of millions of euro range. And then the whole radio clusterfuck. AM radio got totally torn down years ago to "cut costs", there's always discussions to dismantle plain old FM radio too a…

I really am struggling to understand why it's a big deal? Honestly asking, what's the thought process behind the worth of maintaing one? TV channels and radio stations will just broadcast a breaking news thing. Websites will have notices. I'm entirely unclear why you'd need an emergency broadcast system? Or place so much emphasis on its importance? What would you use it for? And why would having one that worked over…

FM is still widely used, in most European countries still way more than DAB.

Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#89

Post by gpvos »

mschuster91 wrote: post #56
Grumbledour wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow German, I can understand the anger, though. Basically, we don't have a warning system anymore, because the pieces that are left are mostly being dismantled (sirens, tv and radio) and all they seem to want to replace it with is an app that doesn't reliably work when the network is fine. Lets be honest, if catastrophy should strike here, we would be last to know.

This x100. It's an utter catastrophe. We had a fully working siren network (at least across Western Germany), and after the end of the Cold War it all got left to rot to pieces - estimates for rebuilding it are well into the hundreds of millions of euro range. And then the whole radio clusterfuck. AM radio got totally torn down years ago to "cut costs", there's always discussions to dismantle plain old FM radio too a…

If I understand correctly, DAB+ transmitters use less power than FM ones, but DAB+ receivers use more power than FM receivers. Considering the number of receivers versus transmitters, this doesn't appear to be a good trade-off to me.

AM even more so, although AM transmitters can be really power-hungry if you want to cover an entire country with one of them.

Re: Germany conducts first nationwide emergency warning day in decades

#90

Post by gpvos »

xaitv wrote: post #47
_Microft wrote: post #4

Tests like this have been conducted on smaller scale in the past, either on Landkreis (county) level or state level. Some towns even test their fire sirens once per month. What makes this newsworthy is that it is conducted "nationwide". Beside that, it's not such a special thing.

As someone who lives in The Netherlands I was kind of confused by this post as well. We have a monthly nationwide test of our emergency warning sirens and every so often the cell broadcast system is tested as well. I thought every/most countries did that?

Nope. Some do, some don't. Actually, I haven't heard the Dutch monthly sirens recently. (Or maybe my Monday workplace is just too far from them?)
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