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Challenges of Optimizing Common Alerting Protocol for SMS based GSM Devices in Last-Mile Hazard Warnings in Sri Lanka

The aim of the Last-Mile Hazard Warning System (LM-HWS) is to deploy various alert and notification wireless technologies intended to reduce the vulnerability of local communities to natural and manmade hazards in Sri Lanka. 1 The project adopts an "all-hazards, all-media" approach designed around a set of five wireless communication technologies. The pilot project entitled, "Evaluating Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination", or the "HazInfo Project", involved deployment, training, and field-testing of the technologies, in various combinations, across 32 tsunami-affected villages, using the "Common Alerting Protocol 2 " (CAP) for data interchange with content provided in three languages (English, Sinhalese and Tamil). Results to date suggest that the basic internetworking arrangement at lower technical layers has proven to be reasonably robust and reliable but that a key challenge remains in the upper layers of application software and content provision. This is evident in the apparent difficulties faced when implementing CAP messaging over a LM-HWS that included two GSM Technology solutions. Lessons learned from silent tests and live exercises point to several key bottlenecks in the GSM solutions where the integrity of CAP messages is compromised due to problems associated with technological boundaries, technical difficulties, software interoperability, and direct human intervention. Those working with content standards and development of software for hazard information systems must consider closely the interoperability issues at various layers of interconnectivity as well as compromising technological uncertainty caused by human mishaps. As field trials suggest, text based alerting such as cell broadcasting (or short message services) can not be introduced for public alerting until a common content standard is agreed upon that takes into consideration the restrictions imposed as a result of miniaturization of mobile handheld devices that prevent from displaying unambiguous alert messages. This paper reports on findings from a series of field tests conducted in Sri Lanka to compare the reliability of the two GSM solutions with their relative effectiveness in terms of alert and notification capabilities in the last-mile of an early warning system