The epic FAIL ... was a success :-)
At least they now realize that their top-down system is not working. Time to fix the real problems - we might really need to do this someday.

Pete2

National Emergency Alert System test planned for Nov. 9 didn't work as it should be. The check have had impact on countrywide television and radio stations. Wireless-aware alert programs are due to be rolled out in the next year. Well, that is why it is called a test. They will be planning to test it again until they get it right. That would be the idea, why they're testing it. Let's just be positive about this.

Many years ago, I did some developmental and operational testing of systems for Uncle Sam. First lesson we learned: establish performance criteria before the tests, not after. This helps with things like knowing why you are testing and how you performed after the tests.

Seems like this was not done for this national test, at least not publicly.

This probably sent more people running for cover than anything else they could have done...

My wife said it worked on our cable TV.

I personally think it is a waste of time and money.

There is no nationwide emergency that would benefit from such a system. If something that big happened, it would be hard not to find out about it.

Test was intented to verify if system worked; so, system failed, test worked anyway! ;-)
Think iof what would it happened if it was real rather than a test...

I have 2 question:
- will test results be made public?
- how many tests will be carried on next? A single test does not proof anything, and the more complex a system is, the higher number of test it requires; this test involves hundreds of millions of people and thousands of broadcaster...

Probably at least a couple of tests per year would be required for next, say, 10 years (assuming system will not be actually needed in the meantime...), but wouldn't people get used to it up to ignoring alert messages in the future...?

I'm sure they already have the ability to tap into your transmissions right now. What they failed in was passing an important message to you.

Japan didn't seem to have any trouble doing it to warn their people of an impending disaster. They gave them almost a whole minute to execute a planned response.

OUR government apparently isn't capable of giving us any warning. The first we shall know about it is when we're knocked on our a$$es!

I'm with Marty on this: FAIL!

Sue

Update:

I still rate this a Fail.