In the case of a campus emergency, UT can send out text message alerts to students.
According to a report released Monday, alert systems via text message may be ineffective in the event of large-scale emergencies, but UT officials say that the University’s system works efficiently.
Many colleges have set up text message alert systems in response to last year’s shooting at Virginia Tech. David Cronk, UT’s director of emergency preparedness, said UT’s four-year-old text message alert system is effective.
“There are 12,000 subscribers and a 97 percent [success rate],” Cronk said. “The missing 3 percent count for students who have their phones completely turned off.”
Monday’s report by Patrick Traynor, an assistant computer science professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said the architecture of cellular networks is not designed to deliver a high volume of emergency messages in a short period of time.
After numerous experiments, Traynor’s report concluded cellular networks are incapable of meeting the 10-minute alert goal established by the Federal Emergency Alert System.
“Let’s describe [cellular networks] as a showerhead,” Traynor said. “Water enters the showerhead and is distributed through numerous holes at a very high-pressured volume.
Now imagine the same high volume of text messages going through a small network. They were never designed to do that.”
As part of the UT emergency plan, there are templates for emergency situations. The templates are designed to implement a “copying and pasting” method that allows students to receive emergency information faster.
“We did a timed test, and it took about 30 to 40 seconds to get a text through,” Cronk said.
Cronk cited a subscriber who received a text alert in the Virgin Islands to emphasize the success rate of UT’s system.
UT does not solely depend on the text system in case of an emergency, Cronk said. Other resources include an outdoor siren system, mass e-mails, the use of city pagers and radio.
Cell phone providers are working on a technological revolution called cell broadcasts, which may be launched within the next two years, Traynor said.
To subscribe to the UT text message alert system, visit www.longhorns.mobilecampus.com
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