A cellular phone based alert messaging system for notifying users at risk

摘要

In the absence of an emergency situation, a device 16 establishes communication with a base station of a cellular mobile network by using a signing-on protocol. This allows location data to be recorded at 26, identifying the handset 16 (and by implication, the user to which the handset belongs) as being present within a particular cell. The signing-on protocol may also include a step of identifying special needs of the user, stored as disability data at 30. In the event of an alarm 28 identifying an emergency, the routing system 22 consults the location data 26 to identify devices 16 within the cell served by the arm 28, and consults disability data 30 to identify any of those devices which belong to users recorded as having special needs. This identifies users at risk from the emergency. An alerting message is sent to the devices of those users, preferably in a form appropriate to their special needs.