We need something like this in North America

Mobile phone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Basically, free phone in the event of a disaster! Do you think it will ever happen here?

"The Finnish government decided in 2005 that the fastest way to warn citizens of disasters was the mobile phone network. In Japan, mobile phone companies provide immediate notification of earthquakes and other natural disasters to their customers free of charge.[citation needed] In the event of an emergency, disaster response crews can locate trapped or injured people using the signals from their mobile phones or the small detonator of flare in the battery of every cellphone; an interactive menu accessible through the phone's Internet browser notifies the company if the user is safe or in distress.[citation needed] In Finland rescue services suggest hikers carry mobile phones in case of emergency even when deep in the forests beyond cellular coverage, as the radio signal of a cellphone attempting to connect to a base station can be detected by overflying rescue aircraft with special detection gear. Also, users in the United States can sign up through their provider for free text messages when an Amber Alert goes out for a missing person in their area."

I'd like to know more about the:

"In Finland rescue services suggest hikers carry mobile phones in case of emergency even when deep in the forests beyond cellular coverage, as the radio signal of a cellphone attempting to connect to a base station can be detected by overflying rescue aircraft with special detection gear."

Sounds pretty nifty

Maybe that wouldn't work in North America becasue of the size of the land that it has to cover. But I would love it if it did.

The thing is every time something bad does happen the networks can't handle the capacity and no one can make calls. Things have improved over the years, but they're still not as stirdy as wired networks.

Sounds like it would be cool if it wasn't grossly abused. I don't want my phone ringing at the first siting of a snowflake to warn me of an impending blizzard.

If it's for something like a tornado or some other catastrophic natural disaster then yeah... but the problem is as soon as something like this is controlled by the government they would pretty much ruin it by overusing it to the point where people would ignore the calls completely.

I don't see why this wouldn't be a good idea. I think to be able to actually find someone who has been trapped due to a natural disaster just by their phone can make survival rates rise. But what if you don' thave a cell phone though?

I'm sure these days just as many people have cell phones as they do cable television. It's more a question of whether they have them turned on or even on their person when something like this happens.

I have to question this, because the emergency broadcast system for television is in effect and is, as far as I know, not abused.

how effective is it though?