Woody <harrogate3@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> On Mon 24/04/2023 11:39, notya...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Monday, 24 April 2023 at 03:02:08 UTC+1, S Viemeister wrote:
>>> On 24/04/2023 01:59, Java Jive wrote:
>>>> On 23/04/2023 21:29, S Viemeister wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On 23/04/2023 21:26, Java Jive wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 23/04/2023 17:04, Tweed wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Further reports suggest some, but not many, 3 sites managed to send the
>>>>>>> alert.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I didn't get it in Sutherland.
>>>>>
>>>>> There's less 4g and 5g in Sutherland, than there is down south.
>>>>
>>>> I'm posting this via a Three 4G mobile broadband connection, and my
>>>> phone is on Three 4G as well, neither received any sort of alert.
>>>>
>>> I wasn't in Sutherland when the signal went out.
>>> When I'm home, my phone is on BT wifi - wonder if I would have received
>>> the alert?
>>
>> It should unless you had mobile data switched off (not quite sure if the
>> alert is an SMS, MMS or a separate feature), however it seems millions
>> of Three customers did not get it.
>>
>> My partner's phone read out an announcement, but mine didn't (was
>> handling a separate reminder at the time).
>
> It is not SMS, MMS, or anything like. It is a message broadcast as a
> data burst on the Control Channel (OK, Control Timeslot) on all selected
> base station sites. Your phone sits on the Control Channel unless it is
> in traffic, but it monitors Control Channels all the time to ensure it
> has the best signal.
>
> However, if the phone is in traffic and thus not using the Control
> Channel per se, is the message repeated on the traffic channel in use,
> or does the phone insert a short break in traffic whilst it downloads
> the message? It would take about a quarter second to send the test
> message used yesterday and that is barely a noticable hole in speech.
>
>
>

The message was repeated for around 15 minutes, to catch phones that
weren’t paying attention at the time (apparently phones only poll for the
message) or were out of range for part of that time. It is postulated that
3 only managed to broadcast the message once.

On Monday, 24 April 2023 at 18:27:12 UTC+1, Tweed wrote:
> Woody <harro...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> > On Mon 24/04/2023 11:39, notya...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> On Monday, 24 April 2023 at 03:02:08 UTC+1, S Viemeister wrote:
> >>> On 24/04/2023 01:59, Java Jive wrote:
> >>>> On 23/04/2023 21:29, S Viemeister wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 23/04/2023 21:26, Java Jive wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On 23/04/2023 17:04, Tweed wrote:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Further reports suggest some, but not many, 3 sites managed to send the
> >>>>>>> alert.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I didn't get it in Sutherland.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> There's less 4g and 5g in Sutherland, than there is down south.
> >>>>
> >>>> I'm posting this via a Three 4G mobile broadband connection, and my
> >>>> phone is on Three 4G as well, neither received any sort of alert.
> >>>>
> >>> I wasn't in Sutherland when the signal went out.
> >>> When I'm home, my phone is on BT wifi - wonder if I would have received
> >>> the alert?
> >>
> >> It should unless you had mobile data switched off (not quite sure if the
> >> alert is an SMS, MMS or a separate feature), however it seems millions
> >> of Three customers did not get it.
> >>
> >> My partner's phone read out an announcement, but mine didn't (was
> >> handling a separate reminder at the time).
> >
> > It is not SMS, MMS, or anything like. It is a message broadcast as a
> > data burst on the Control Channel (OK, Control Timeslot) on all selected
> > base station sites. Your phone sits on the Control Channel unless it is
> > in traffic, but it monitors Control Channels all the time to ensure it
> > has the best signal.
> >
> > However, if the phone is in traffic and thus not using the Control
> > Channel per se, is the message repeated on the traffic channel in use,
> > or does the phone insert a short break in traffic whilst it downloads
> > the message? It would take about a quarter second to send the test
> > message used yesterday and that is barely a noticable hole in speech.
> >
> >
> >
> The message was repeated for around 15 minutes, to catch phones that
> weren’t paying attention at the time (apparently phones only poll for the
> message) or were out of range for part of that time. It is postulated that
> 3 only managed to broadcast the message once.

Nah, neither of our online 3 devices got it and we have good coverage on all nets here.