You may have heard your phone ringing very loudly last Thursday, it was FR-Alert messages sent by the prefecture. They allow you to be informed of the location, nature and behavior to adopt in the event of imminent danger. Thursday October 17, three notifications have been sent in areas considered at risk, following the orange flood vigilance for the Rhône. This is a first in the department. But some Vaucluse residents who were in these areas did not receive these messages.
A random telephone boundary
Johnny Douvinet works on improving the FR-Alert system as an academic with the authorities. According to him, this bug falls within the technical domain of the device and each person’s telephone operators. “We can both be in the same room but on the other hand our two phones are connected to two different antennas which are located in two different geographical locationsindicates Johnny Douvinet, geographer at the University of Avignon. If your phone and the antenna are in the alert zone, you will receive a message but if I connect to another antenna that is not in the alert zone, I will not receive the message.”
“There may be areas where all of a sudden, there are a lot of people in the same place so the operator’s antenna can no longer ensure and maintain the network so rather than being a party to no longer have network, this transfers our phone to another antenna which may be far away. This explains why some people receive it or not receive it“, adds Johnny Douvinet.
These alert message distribution problems are currently studying by FR-Alert technical services.
