Alberta Emergency Alert (AEA) is a public warning system in

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

that warns the public on impending or occurring emergencies affecting an area. The system was implemented in October 2011, replacing the former Alberta Emergency Public Warning System. Alerts are disseminated through various media outlets including television and radio, internet, social media

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

s, and

cell broadcast Cell Broadcast (CB) is a method of sending messages to multiple mobile telephone users in a defined area at the same time. It is defined by the ETSI’s GSM committee and 3GPP and is part of the 2G, 3G, 4G LTE (telecommunication) and 5G s ...

. Alerts are set into two stages; an "Information Alert", in which the public is advised to be prepared for potentially life-threatening emergencies. Information Alerts do not interrupt TV and radio broadcast. A "Critical Alert" in which potentially life-threatening danger is imminent or present such as a

tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, altho ...

touchdown. TV and radio stations in Alberta must transmit "Critical" messages from Alberta Emergency Alert. The system also broadcasts alerts in the event of an

AMBER alert An Amber Alert (alternatively styled AMBER alert) or a child abduction emergency alert ( SAME code: CAE) is a message distributed by a child abduction alert system to ask the public for help in finding abducted children. The system originated i ...

. Unlike the previous system (where the alerts were read on-air by a recorded voice), alerts are read using a

text-to-speech Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal languag ...

system. Initially, the quality of its voice was criticized, with viewers considering it unclear and prone to mispronouncing the names of locations. In 2013, a new, male voice was implemented, which was programmed to have clearer pronunciations of various terms and place names. Effective March 31, 2015 for television and radio broadcasters, and April 6, 2018 for LTE wireless networks, carriage of AEA "Critical" messages is mandatory under

CRTC The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; french: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes, links=) is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasti ...

rules regarding the implementation of

Alert Ready The National Public Alerting System (NPAS; french: Système national d'alertes à la population), branded as Alert Ready (), is the national warning system in Canada, broadcast to Canadian television, radio, and wireless devices. The system con ...

, a national emergency notification system developed by Pelmorex that also uses

Common Alerting Protocol The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is an XML-based data format for exchanging public warnings and emergencies between alerting technologies. CAP allows a warning message to be consistently disseminated simultaneously over many warning systems to m ...

. As AEA has compatibility with Alert Ready's format and distribution system (besides minor differences in AEA's

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable ...

schema for Common Alerting Protocol), the CRTC has considered participation in AEA to sufficiently in compliance with the national alerting mandate.

References

External links

* {{Cell Broadcast System Emergency management in Canada Emergency population warning systems in Canada 2011 establishments in Alberta