The projects that Nuwan worked on were on first responder warning. Our first foray into public warning was in the Maldives. You can see from the Maldives, there’s very good mobile coverage. At the peak tourists amount to 1/5th of the population. In the Maldives there was great property damage in the Malidives.

Cell broadcasting is different from SMS. It is point to multi-point. It’s real advantage is it’s immune to congestion. One of the requirements in the Maldives is also how far does it reach into the ocean. There’s no response required from the handset, so this signal can also go further.

The cell information module has to be activated, but it was not activated in the Maldives. There are 60,000+ logical channels available. Technology is only a part of the answer. We need to get hotels and coastal communities involved. The government must also have procedures. We have to have targets within our governments as well.