On Thursday, Ardèche County used the FR-Alert system twice to alert residents of the immediate danger of heavy rain and then floods. The problem is, subscribers to the free service never received anything.
France has equipped itself with a population alert system on smartphones. It works without requiring a subscription and alerts everyone in a certain area, including strangers there.
Frequent problem
Called FR-Alert, it is triggered during natural or human-related attacks or events that can cause damage. The device was activated twice on Thursday in Ardèche and in other provinces, the first due to heavy rain and a little more than two hours later, and the second was for flood and flash flood warnings.
These messages were received simultaneously by people on the site, excluding people on Free Mobile. The letters arrived too late and in many cases were never delivered.
Pretty serious, and first of all, this isn't the first time this has happened Nomirama. Already in the past, subscribers to the free service never received alerts even though they were delivered nicely on subscribers' phones to a competitor.
The operator has done nothing to address this issue even though the device is now almost 2 years old and nothing has been communicated regarding a future upgrade/update to see if the issue will be rectified quickly.
However, this can be dangerous if no one in the competition has a mobile phone besides someone else in Free in such a situation. The subscriber can leave his home even if he is officially asked not to do so.
How FR-Alert works – Source: Government
