Three UK Coughs to Problems with Emergency Alert Test UPDATE
Mobile operator Three UK appears to have been one of the worst affected yesterday after many of their customers (including yours truly) did NOT receive a notification during the Government’s nationwide test of their new Emergency Alerts service, despite using supported kit. A smaller portion of users on Vodafone, O2 and EE also had problems.
Firstly, it’s important to note that the Emergency Alerts service is not actually able to work for everybody. The system aims to reach nearly 90% of mobile phones in a defined area and, on top of that, you’d need a modern 4G or 5G Smartphone in order to receive it (older 2G and 3G kit are out). Likewise, if you’re on an iPhone or Android device then you’d need to be running at least iOS 14.5 or Android 11, respectively (some older versions may also work, they’re just not officially supported).
However, the 3pm test on Sunday (23rd April 2023) didn’t go quite according to plan, even for those with supported devices and alerts enabled (including the whole of my household). Many people reported that the alerts arrived several minutes late (a few said it arrived slightly early) and many more didn’t receive it at all, particularly customers on mobile operator Three UK that appeared to be the worst hit.
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A spokesperson for Three UK acknowledged the issue: “We’re aware that a number of customers have not received the test alert. We’re working closely with the government to understand why and ensure it doesn’t happen when the system is in use.”
From the looks of it, operators that successfully performed the trial were able to rebroadcast the signalling continuously for a duration of around 20 minutes (this is the expected behaviour). But for some reason, Three UK didn’t appear to propagate the test message correctly through its core. Interestingly, mobile guru David Wheatley noted on Twitter that Three UK had similar issues with the repetition period and number of broadcasts in their signalling during earlier trials.
The government’s Cabinet Office is known to be investigating the reported issues as part of their post-test review process. According to the BBC, the same department also said engineers had spotted a trend of phone functions failing to work afterwards.
Just to point out. The Emergency Alerts system doesn’t work like normal SMS messages. Instead, it uses a one-way cell broadcast system that comes directly from the mast you’re connected to, which avoids some of the bottlenecks of traditional text messaging. The system does not access or collect personal data, as that is NOT technically possible via this method (it’s merely based on the physical fact of a mobile device being within range of the signal – it doesn’t even need to use or know your number).
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Did you receive the Emergency Alert on Sunday?
- Yes (51%, 785 Votes)
- No (41%, 625 Votes)
- I Have Emergency Alerts Disabled (7%, 104 Votes)
- I Have an Unsupported Device (1%, 17 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,531
UPDATE 25th April 2023 @ 7:15am
Mobile operator Three UK has issued another statement to announce that it has fixed the issue that prevented alerts from reaching many end-users on Sunday.
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A Three UK Spokesperson said:
“Following the emergency alerts test yesterday, we’ve been working with the government and have identified a technical issue that meant some of our customers didn’t receive the alert. This morning our engineers deployed a fix meaning there will be no issue with future alerts.
There are no plans to run the test again, but Sunday’s activity means an issue was identified and in a real emergency we can make sure everyone across the country gets an alert.”
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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I received it, although thanks to the US EAS for TV and I was watching something horror related, at first I thought it was just coming from the TV because of the similar sounding tone on my Samsung phone.
Thanks for mentioning me!
Easiest disable
Important fact: this was implemented by Fujitsu partnering with Infosys. The govt paid several millions of taxpayer money for something useless to Sunak’s wife yet again
grasping at straws. Infosys is not Sunak’s wife’s company. And it’s not useless just because you say it is. Why are raging lefties also completely insane?
Infosys was founded by Sunak’s father in law. Also former CEO of Fujitsu is the husband of a current sitting MP, and Fujitsu was also involved with the post office scandal
Agree with leftists being crazy but even if you deny the corruption claims, this is a case of another govt waste of taxpayer money that no one wants or needs
ok if you are suggesting the government gave the money to infosys because of a connection with Sunak’s father in law, then you have no idea how government contracting works. They will have had to submit a bid like all the other competitors.
Also, I think it’s just a little bit wacko for all these people to insist that an emergency alert system, which the US and EU have already, is “worthless”. But i’m sure if the Labour leaders had created it then it would be the most useful system known to man.
“then you have no idea how government contracting works. They will have had to submit a bid like all the other competitors.”
Think you will find you don’t know. My company works with the govt and does not bid for work.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/04/infosys-still-operating-russia-rishi-sunak-akshata-murty
PK.
Sure you do.
@polpot I live in Greece and I’m Italian, I have friends in Portugal, Spain and France, there’s no alert system in Europe. At all. We never heard about it.
Whilst it makes for a good story unfortunately your ‘fact’ is not true, Fujitsu are one of the contractors but have not sub-contracted to Infosys.
https://fullfact.org/online/infosys-emergency-alerts/
because you’ve not heard of it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU-Alert
after telling people for months this thing was coming they still couldn’t get it right they must of used a poor translate programme to convert it to welsh ……there is NO V IN WELSH …idiots
https://news.sky.com/story/emergency-alert-test-technical-error-causes-welsh-language-spelling-error-12864536
Pretty sure correct grammar and spelling wouldn’t be the first thing on your mind when faced with impending doom…..
Anecdata/historical sample of one.
One of my phones got the alerts in the two previous localised trials. Several times on each occasion. The trial was supposedly in Suffolk, the phone was in North Norfolk (Holt, as it happens any further north and I would have been on a boat offshore).
The phone was an older 4G Alcatel model on Three (no way to disable cell broadcast). So Three can do it. This was well before Three upgraded the Holt mast to 5G (as a one-off point upgrade rather than for the wider rural region).
I didn’t have this phone on yesterday to further experience the joy of the alert.
Not sure this info is correct.
I have Android 9 on my phone (according to settings>About Phone> Software Information > Android Version) and I received the message fine.
Where did the Android 11 requirement come from?
Yep, I got it fine on Android 10 too (Huawei Mate 20 Pro).
Yes, I was surprised and disappointed at the misinformation in the article:-
“if you’re on an iPhone or Android device then you’d need to be running at least iOS 14.5 or Android 11, respectively”
That would surely rule out a lot of phones and users.
My Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 running Android 13.0 on the VMO2 network and my wife’s Samsung Galaxy S7 edge running Android 8.0 on the TalkMobile (Vodafone) network both received the alert. However, my Samsung Galaxy S8+ running Android 9.0 and my Samsung Galaxy S10+ running Android 12.0 on the Three network did not.
I do have devices running older versions of Android on other networks which, with hindsight, I wished that I had switched on but I had just returned for trip away and had other things to catch up with. The next time, I’ll be better prepared!
It’s from the official guidance folks. But the government do say that you “may” still be able to get the alerts on earlier versions, it’s just not officially or fully supported.
Yes, I got it fine on a Lenovo (Motorola) G4 with Android 7.0 including the spoken message too.
I did not receive the emergency alert on my Chinese OUKITEL phone with Android 9, whereas my brother did on his Nokia with Android 12?
Summary of what probably went wrong …
https://twitter.com/davwheat_/status/1650149573313085441
I thought the purpose of a test was to see what did and didn’t work. So the test achieved its purpose of gaining knowledge.
Failing a test is always more instructive than passing it first time.
So true.
Incredible to see Good Morning Britain describe it as a “ fiasco”. They totally missed the point, but then we all know it’s deliberate.
Except…. it seems Three experienced the same issue in the earlier tests. Which begs the question of why it wasn’t fixed after those tests.
Plus – Three: “we’ve found and fixed the problem. It won’t happen again, next time when it’s needed for a real alert, it will work fine. No need for another test”. I mean, there’s no chance whatosever that having fixed one problem, another one that was masked by the previous one won’t become visible, or that a new one has been introduced, is there? That’s never, ever happened in tech before, has it?
My son didn’t receive it on EE however the rest of the family in different locations did. We realised that he depends on WiFi calling as cellular service is so poor in his home, therefore he isn’t receiving a cell broadcast from a tower. This could explain quite a significant number of those who didn’t receive the alert.
Yes, I quite frequently have to rely on Wi-Fi Calling these days and I wondered if that had been provisioned for in the plan.
I am always on wifi calling and I got it.
@Charles – but you must be in range of a tower.
Very, very flakey 3G/4G here, effectively none indoors, use WiFi calling, and didn’t receive it.
It would only be if we happened to get a signal at the time of one of the transmissions that we would have.
If you did not acknowledge the alert and let it run, the voice message that came with it after the beeping stopped was in an American accent. The tin foil hatters will be having kittens.
Mine was in a well-spoken British accent not dissimilar to the Google assistant.
I got it. Not quite at 3 but 2:59!
It would be interesting to compare behaviour for phones from abroad roaming in the UK based on whether alerts is already in common use (e.g. US) vs not in use.
Also variations between mobile operators and their host networks–and type of hosting arrangement (e.g. Tesco Mobile vs O2, VOXI/Voda, Three/ID Mobile, Lyca, Lebara, etc. etc.) And multi-network roaming SIMS.
Also I have seen ZERO discussion on whether mobile network connected security pendant solutions should have some sort of emergency alert type behaviour. It feels like they should although the technical solution would be different I suspect as the alert has to be voice delivered (with clear vocalisation!)
In my main phone (iPhone 12 pro), I have my EE sim card and then dual sim running my vodafone GR sim (roaming on vodafone UK). I therefore got the alert twice (at 14:59 and 15:00)
I also put my AT&T sim into an iPhone 7 (again roaming on vodafone UK) and that one landed at 15:01
My iphone with a french sim card from Free was connected to the Three network yesterday and did not get the alert…
Three UK messed up badly with emergency alert. Over 90% of it’s customers didn’t received it. According to a user poll post https://twitter.com/ruthamydavidson/status/1650159271068286976?t=C33_GS8u5-vPkZN_u04c7Q&s=19 95% did not received it.
It is over any explanation and excuses.
As was pointed out in a reply to that poll, two option polls are inherently flawed as mostly only the people who experienced a problem see them and respond to them.
I’m sure that all of the networks will publish more accurate figures in due course.
That amount is a very small amount though, Three have millions of customers and only ~2000 have selected an option, and there’s no way to verify they’re official Three customers.
Someone bodged up our Welsh translation. it was a complete mess.
I’m on Three and I received it. I live outside Cardiff and was in the city at the time. Seems everyone in Cardiff received it apparently.
That’s okay, Welsh is a made up language anyways.
You are about to die is the same message regardless of how accurate the translation is.
Didn’t matter for me one bit, to be honest.
1. I am not with Three
2. I have emergency alerts disabled
Oh look at me I have emergency alerts disabled
Why would you disable a facility designed to inform you of potentially life-saving information?
At least can we have your assurance that, should your property become flooded for example, that you won’t complain that you weren’t told in time?
More importantly, if you sense the slightest hint of what might be a communicable disease or infection, please promise us that you will self-isolate and not have the bliss of your ignorance be our demise.
How did you live your life until this alert? If your property is in danger of flooding do you really need an alert from the govt? What information do you need to be alerted about that isn’t convened through literally every channel?
It has no reason to exist. Disabling is the sensible choice
Same disabled GOV can’t get anything right remember the track and trace bs how much they spent on that Matt handock and his cronies partied throughout the whole pandemic while I stayed at home done with this fooled me once not twice nuclear missiles does come I will hide in the fridge freezer like Boris says..
Yep emergency alerts yet more woke nonsense turn this off before the gov use it for something nefarious!!
There is genuinely nothing some people won’t call ‘woke’.
1p & Smarty in same phone (Nothing) 1p at 15.00 Smarty 15.03
I didn’t get the alert on either of my Samsung Galaxy phones which are on Vodafone and Giffgaff (uses O2).
Sheeps got scammed once with the stay at home protect the NHS text while Boris went on a nice party during the pandemic…
Besides that, there is no need to contract out millions when the ability to text is already existent. They area really trying hard to set up the next scam
Sam, this system is a thing because sending texts to every mobile number in 2020 took 2 days and ground the SMS system to a near-halt for that period.
POV you are spreading disinformation.
I have a Samsung Galaxy A13 on O2 (my work phone). No alert received on there. Not sure if it was the handset or the network that drove that.
I am with three PAYG on my second phone. They phone me at least twice a week, every week, on it trying to get me to take up a contract with them. But they cannot send a simple warning message warning me of an Earthquake or Asteroid heading to earth.
To all those who say Alerts has no purpose, I would say flooding, especially if you live in an at risk area (and there are more areas at risk: moving back to a level of risk similar to 1953 which as a fatal event).
An extra few minutes to help mitigate property damage or even evacuate. And flooding can get really bad very quickly.
This past winter has seen events in North London where basement flats were almost submerged.
Maybe not as many possibilities for severe emergencies as other countries (weather, fire, unrest, invasion). But enough to make a relatively cheap enablement worthwhile.
The weather forecast exists. If there is a massive flood that could kill everyone then we should have a massive siren and firemen shouting for people to evacuate, not just a phone notification.
You can spot a fire with your eyes and again this won’t help, plenty of unrest everywhere and I don’t think Germany wants to invade the UK again at least not for the foreseeable future
Not everyone checks the weather forecast and occasionally things change suddenly. It’s also massively inefficient to have sirens and firemen everywhere when mobile phone penetration is as high as it is in Britain.
As for the invasion comment, you should also remember that British sovereign territory has been invaded since WW2, memorably by Argentina but also the British Indian Ocean Territory has had a Mauritian flag planted on it, which is also a challenge to our sovereignty.
We need to be preparing for everything, to ensure we’re not scrambling to protect our interests and to keep us safe. This is a privacy preserving, effective method of providing residents with needed information in any life endangering circumstance, from the Servern flooding to Argentina deciding they want their bum slapped again.
A weather forecast is no use for a major pipe main burst, as happened recently in London, damn near downed people in nearby basement flats, or a unexpected river/costal defence failure. Other methods of notification can take time.
In any case I see this eventually replacing the existing environment agency warning system for floods (which is an not very well known opt in service, also no use for a pipe main burst).
Pretty sure technology exists to forecast “MASSIVE LIVE THREATENING FLOOD” to the point that anyone and their grannies can know when it is coming. In Florida they plaster it everywhere and it goes mad when a hurricane is hitting… days before it does.
I’m sure a bloke in the pub in the middle of Gloucester really needs a notification on his phone saying that the Falklands are being invaded because he won’t be able to find it everywhere else though. Guess now that he knows irrelevant information he’s now safe
@Graham. This was a test. In a real emergency the messages would only be broadcast via base stations in and around the affected area. So no need to worry about being todl that the Falklands have been invaded, or the Zombie Apocalypse has started in Glasgow.
Glasgow is already a zombie city, no amount of gov texts will change that
I’m quite surprised by some of the comments.
I have received these emergency alerts when in Greece. I’ve had ones warning of forest fires in my area and then in the winter, floods.
In the States, I’ve had Amber Alerts (missing / kidnapped children) alerts. I’ve seen others get active shooter alerts. Gotta love America.
My friend also got one when he moved to Toronto warning of tornados.
For me, I hope we never need to use this system but I’ll 100% keep the alerts on. After all, it’s up to me what I do with the information they share. Ignorance isn’t always bliss.
According to a post by 3 on facebook, the test will not be repeated.
Following the emergency alerts test yesterday, we’ve been working with the government and have identified a technical issue that meant some of our customers didn’t receive the alert. This morning our engineers deployed a fix meaning there will be no issue with future alerts.
There are no plans to run the test again, but Sunday’s activity means an issue was identified and in a real emergency we can make sure everyone across the country gets an alert.
———————————————————————–
We will wait and see.
So a test to see if it works or not. To literally save us all from impending doom if it ever happens. It didn’t work. And now its a case of we think we fixed it, trust us, no need to run a second test to make sure.
My phone was off at the time of the broadcast. Turned it on the next day, over 12 hours later and the alarm sounded.
Thats literally not how the alert protocol works, but go on.
I say things that aren’t true because I crave attention……
John, it happened to me too! I turned on my work mobile on Monday morning and it went off after about 10 minutes.
Maybe Emmanuel Goldstein has sabotaged the project. Big Brother (aka the Home office) will be most upset.
People freaking out because of issues…. WITH A TEST!
That’s what tests are for… to discover issues…
There is an Issue with Three that’s been picked up by the TEST
Therefore the Test was successful!!
In Germany they actually had a debate about this after the devastating floodings last year. They came to the conclusion that too many conventional sirens were taken down due to cost issues and a high reliance on this mobile phone based alert system. Turns out it didn’t warn many people in time, it didn’t work as well as expected, and the networks collapsed due to the floods damaging the fibre cables…
Don’t get me wrong – it can be a useful system for stuff like terror attacks – but one shouldn’t make the mistake and only rely on this…