ANU SMS setup

As is Canberra Stadium, where things bog down just with normal traffic having all those people in the one spot.

anu is covered by several cells, from diff telcos.

all this info is online.

Bear in mind that SMS can only send 160 characters per message. I’m not sure whether that is in a single data packet or split into several (I couldn’t be assed checking), but it is still a small amount of data in the scheme of things, especially when compared to voice calls. It’s worth noting that in terms of cost per character, SMS is just about the most expensive form of electronic communication on the planet!

It still needs to hold the connection open though right? So it’s the capacity of the phone to receive and send back an acknowledgment of receipt that forms the bottleneck?

To say nothing of during a campus wide emergency you’re going to see a *lot* of people trying to use their phones while this flood of messages is going out?

I’m just thinking about the way a big crowd at Canberra Stadium stresses the infrastructure.

To clarify, 15,000 SMS messages with a short period of time (say 15 minutes) should be easily achievable.

15,000 SMS messages won’t tax the mobile comms as much as you think, because they do not have the Quality of Service requirements as for a voice call. That is, a voice call has time requirements for getting the data passed through so the call sounds ok, with SMS it’s just a few characters that can get sent when the space is available. For large scale commercial infrastructure, a single SMS will take considerably less than a couple of seconds.

true. But would they hear with their iPod headphones at full volume?

Also, during the Blitz, 43,000 civilians had been killed and more than a million houses destroyed or damaged. I suspect the sound only encouraged people to go and see what all the noise was about.

All far too complicated. This is one instance where we could learn from the past, screw modern technology.

How did they alert hundreds of thousands during the London blitz? With bloody great klaxons everywhere.

I’d have thought that’d be the best answer if ANU wanted to raise a campus-wide alarm.

hmm, if it’s a couple of seconds per message that could be hours of delay.

Oh, sorry JohnBoy. I though you meant cell as in cell phone.
I’m not sure how many messages can be sent through each cell tower on networks in Australia. However, Vodafone states the following on their website:

“A typical Vodafone base station can accommodate approximately 40-60 simultaneous voice and data signals.”

A message to 15,000 people would therefore cause a sudden traffic jam on the network. Message may be delayed.

I have signed up for it, now I have an excuse to leave my mobile on in class!

That previous comment was from me. I don’t know why it has displayed my login name rather than display nickname?

That previous comment was from me. I don’t know why it has displayed my login name rather than display nickname?

True, but your recipients don’t number 15,000 (i imagine) and unlikely to all being served by the same cell phone towers.

Sammy, I don’t mean the shootings in the US promoted the creation of the system. But no prizes for guessing why we are only hearing about it now.

Gnt: Code Black did not cover bomb threats. The booklet had colour codes pages for:
– Fire
– Bomb Threat
– Earthquake
– Flood
– “Serious Incident”

Johnboy, I assume the ANU will use a SMS distribution service. They interveiwed someone on 2CC last week who offers a service to sporting groups and schools where they can send a text message to a large number of uses for a small flat fee. But to answer you question, my Nokia can send a single message to every person in my address book, which is a max of 200 + however many you can fit on the SIM.

my understanding is that this won’t replace traditional evacuation methods (a good thing) but is intended to warn people who are off campus, or in an isolated corner of the very large campus, not to come in.

Does anyone know the maximum capacity of a single cell to deliver text messages?

A death sentence for all the inconsiderate bastards who can’t be arsed maintaining a phone

If you’re sitting in a lecture theatre and suddenly all those people with their phones on vibrate start leaving, the message would spread pretty quickly!

No prizes for guessing what prompted this

The ANU SMS system has actually been in development since the hail storm, and was not prompted by the events at VT. Even the ANU don’t move that quickly.

BTW JB – the few people who don’t have a phone probably have friends who can pass the message on to them. If everyone on campus is evacuating, surely they’d get the message somehow.

I remember evacuation drills where there were two options: “fire” and “other”. We assumed other was a bomb threat, but it could be a shooting.

No prizes for guessing what prompted this.
Let us hope that such events as seen recently in the US never prompt the use of such a system.

On a somewhat related topic,
I think a lot of people under estimate the planning and precautions in place should a school shooting occur in an Australian school. I came across a booklet of emergency procedures in a Canberra High School last year. In it were colour coded pages, each colour representing a different incident from fire (red) to earthquake (green?) to flood (blue).

The final colour was Black, with the ambigous title “Serious Incident”. Translated, this means shooting, riot or sudden visit from the head of the education department.

As I recall, Code Black calls for among other things:
-Students to be moved into classrooms and door secured.
– Police to be called.
– External school gates/doors to be secured.
I don’t know if this booklet is standard for all ACT schools of just the one where I saw it.

I thinks its a good idea for the ANU to ensure it has every students number. It could literally be a matter of life and death should a “serious incident” occur.