Ten second alarms blared out from phones across the UK on April 23 – regardless of whether you had the volume turned up or down.
The trial sets the stage for disaster warnings to be issued by phone, with focus on life-threatening weather, floods and fires in the country.
The UK Government believes this will be a ‘vital tool’ to help improve emergency response.
However, a ‘very small proportion of mobile users’ did not receive the test of a new national emergency alert system on Sunday afternoon.
Questions are being asked about the government’s new emergency alert test after it sparked confusion in parts of Britain today – with Three customers reporting they did not receive any alert while others received it too early.
Participants in the London Marathon were also beset by confusion once the emergency alerts began pinging on their mobile phones, with many racers caught off-guard as they approached the finish line.
The Cabinet Office said the ‘vast majority of compatible phones’ received the alert as part of what was said to be the biggest public communications exercise carried out in the UK.
But the government department said it was aware that the 10- second alarm and message notification was not delivered to some mobile phones.
Tens of millions of phones across the UK emitted the 10-second siren, which sounded at shortly before 3pm, accompanied by a message which popped up on phones explaining that it was a test and people did not need to take any action.
Three – which has been paid up to £3.6million for their part in the rollout – told DailyMail they are ‘aware’ of the issue and are working with government ‘to understand why’ it occurred.
A Three spokesman said: ‘We are aware that a number of customers have not received the test alert. We are working closely with the government to understand why and ensure it doesn’t happen when the system is in use.’
