@LaF0rge @stman @kDelta @Sempf obviously that's why it was discontinued for a time in #Germany, as it was considered as obsolete as #HSCSD is in light of faster standards that - even without guaranteed bandwith - will yield higher throughput.

• Obviously #CellBroadcast will necessitate a constant bandwith allocation for functionality as it's design is based upon repeating a message until it's transmissiom being removed.

Still, even in contended #spectrum this is manageable, espechally since most #MNOs only maintain vestigal #2G or #3G infrastructure solely for #emergency coverage and reliability, as most phones will call emergency services over 2G and 3G and not via #VoLTE.

• To add insult to injury, most BSCs will downgrade to 2G-only service by default in case of power loss to maximize UPS range and in the case of #NewZealand even switch off all services but #SMS & #EmergencyServicesCalling to enshure people in need can get their calls out, as the population is instructed to use SMS for person-to-person communication (as SMS is a low-priority, non-realtime service using excess bandwith and thus not compete with calling like #EDGE and #CSD would.

@stman @kDelta @Sempf @LaF0rge Personally I think that with all it's problems, and #GSM as well as it's successive versions have many, #CellBroadcast isn't one of them!

https://mastodon.social/@stman/114862897424625589

@stman well, there were some commercial services that used #CellBroadcast but for the most part it's best feature is the effective mass alerting of people in an area without needing them to install yet another app or signup to yet another service...

• The [temporary] shutdown of #CellBroadcast caused hundreds of avoidable deaths in Germany alone.

@kDelta @Sempf @LaF0rge @nitrokey @signalapp @GrapheneOS

@Lili ja, #CellBroadcast geht an alle Endgeräte.

• Per Spezifikation gehen auch Notrufe ohne SIM, nur wurde dies wegen Missbrauch in Deutschland explizit abgeschaltet!

And now we have Cellbroadcastd 0.0.2 as well, which fixes a build failure on arm64 and gets the symbol file in order (thanks @agx !)

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/devrtz/cellbroadcastd/-/releases/v0.0.2

@devrtz @NGIZero @snwh …and as a service to user interfaces/DEs that don't want to add explicit #CellBroadcast support #cbd can now send notifications. Just enabling the setting is enough.

This is configurable on a severity level so you could use a system modal dialog for high severity events and notifications for low severity ones. This is (likely) how we'll wire it up in #phosh once everything has settled in.

My #FreeSoftware Activities for April 2025: https://honk.sigxcpu.org/con/Free_Software_Activities_April_2025.html

Mostly #phosh/#LinuxMobile (e.g. alarm-clock, #feedbackd, #Cellbroadcast) related but also some #Debian bits.

to everyone supporting this!

@MishaVanMollusq @Unixbigot reminds me of the #Ahr valley flooding which killed a lot of folks because none of the media and civil protection talked about it and #CellBroadcast was shutdown years ago...

• The latter one being reinstated & mandated by @BNetzA and @bmi as a #warning system shortly after!

My advice: Keep to it and ideally be ready to GTFO up hill / to the side on a minute's notice!

Seriously, there's a reason why every other nation at the very least keeps the absolute minimum of bandwith necessary to maintain #2G & #3G service for #EmergencyCalling.

In fact, #Germany learned the hard way that #CellBroadcast and #PTY31 / #RDS - based #alarms and #sirens are not replaceable.

• It's frustrating to see that it took a triple-digit bodycount to get that across...

@abuerkl also #CellBroadcast reaktivieren wie in #Deutschland???

@aslmx You're incorrect - at least partially.

• It was reactivated as until the late 2000s and early 2010s it was actually available in all 4 (back then!) major networks.

• I remember it fondly because I did use the location feature offered in #Eplus's Network extensively...

• AFAICT #CellBroadcast is only offered as a tunneled service in #4G & #5G networks, so the same issues of #VoLTE apply as *both 4G & 5G were designed for a premium mobile data service and not as a simple replacement of #2G and/or #3G...

And in #Germany it took a Natural Disaster with a triple digit bodycount for #CellBroadcast to be reactivated per legal mandate and #2G to remain online...

The fact that Telstra was unable to say how many devices roamed their Network should be seen as criminal incompetence cuz asking something like: "How many foreign devices are #roaming in your network?" is a standard #FAQ I'd expect them to put into their public financial reports - even as a #footnote re: #revenue [i.e. total devices, total revenue, average Calls / SMS / data per roaming device] cuz that's standard #metrics every #Telco & #ISP does create anyway...

@fell @postmarketOS @GrapheneOS that's because #GSM devices can connect to networks even without a #SIM (they need to in order to establish registration & roaming handshakes)...

• In fact, until several years ago (when it was specifically deactivated due to rampant abuse and false alerts) one could still dial police (110) & fire dept. / EMS (112) in #Germany without an inserted #SIM.

#CellBroadcast as in todays #NationalAlertDay doesn't distinguish between the devices or SIM status as it literally sends the message to everyone in range.