T-Mobile, Dish, AT&T, others report hiccups with emergency alert test

Results are in from wireless operators that participated in the federal government’s nationwide test earlier this month of its Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs). Service providers including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Dish Network and others reported mostly positive test results, but some cited some hiccups such as fiber cuts that delayed alert delivery and issues with some Android devices receiving alerts.

Some of the wireless providers said they conducted extensive reviews of their operations to look for possible troubles. For example, AT&T said that more than 1,000 employees participated in a voluntary survey to determine the test’s results.

“Over 99.3% of the respondents received and reviewed the English version of the alert. 85% respondents received and reviewed the alert within 1 minute or less. And 90% of respondents received and reviewed the alert within 3 minutes or less,” AT&T reported in a new filing.

One problem that AT&T reported was a fiber cut in Texas that affected connectivity to roughly 30 cell sites.

“Cell sites serving twelve cities … in Texas were off-the-air during the initial transmission of the alert,” the company wrote. “Once restored, the alert would have been transmitted and those subscribers that didn’t receive the alert from the surrounding area or other providers would have then received the alert. This may have impacted approximately 35,000 subscribers.”

T-Mobile reported trouble on some of its Android phones.

“T-Mobile observed an anomaly amongst subscribers utilizing certain handsets running the Android R or newer Operating System (OS),” the operator explained.

Dish said it “experienced some complications that prevented the transmitted message from being received by some devices.” However, the company’s filing on the topic did not provide details about the complications.

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