Last year Silicon Valley (aka Santa Clara County in California) setup a county-wide emergency alert system based on the Blackboard Connect platform used by many cities, universities and schools which broadcasts email and telephone voice messages systemwide per:
Palo Alto was the last city to join the program last month after abandoning their proprietary Community Alerting and Notification System (CANS).
Santa Clara County's info page is .
Palo Alto's info page is here:
where they tout SMS messaging. There wasn't much fanfare in the local media and several Palo Alto friends asked me for some help regarding signing up for the new program because there's some confusion as to what constitutes SMS messaging for those of us who've never done any texting. Ever.
This page:
confused them and me with comments like:
- For most consumers, the SMS phone number is simply their mobile phone number.
- A short code is essentially a mobile telephone number that, being significantly shorter than an average number (typically 4 to 6 digits in length), is designed to be easier to remember.
and no indication how a "short code" is assigned and actually used and/or whether it's even relevant for this alert application.
Here's the problem.
The signup form for AlertSCC has these entry boxes, examples, and comments (among others such as name, address, etc.):
[ Primary E-mail Address ] Example: snipped-for-privacy@domain.com [ Secondary E-mail Address ] [ Primary Phone Number ] Example: 555-555-5555 [ Secondary Phone Number ] [ TTY Phone Number (default N/A) ]SMS phone number will only be used for text messsaging. [ SMS phone number ]
The question asked of me (for which I'm not sure of the answer) is where does one put the contact address or number of their cell phone?
I looked back at what I entered for myself for my town last year and noticed I did this:
my main real email address entered as "Primary E-mail",
"cellphone#@txt.att.net" entered as "Secondary E-mail",
and nothing for the "SMS phone number"
I know for a fact my phone receives email sent to the "cellphone#@txt.att.net" address, but what is this method termed? Is it SMS or simply email?
For the moment I advised my friends to do what I did and enter the email address of their cell phone as a secondary E-mail address and leave the SMS entry box blank; the data can always be easily changed/edited later.
Confusion arises due to email arriving on the cellphones being termed "messages" and not specifically "email".
Arrgh. :-)
An anciliary question: HOW can they send 100000s of voice mail and email alerts in the supposedly rapid time frame required by an emergency alert system such as Blackboard's? Is there some special capability of landline COs and cellphone equivalents to handle such massive calling?