Over half the cell phones in BC did not get today’s Emergency Alert

It looks like only half of the province will survive in the event of apocalypse. (Just kidding!)

Today’s Emergency Alert test was meant to send out an alert message and loud beeping tone to all compatible cell phones in the province.

But it looks like about 60% of British Columbians did not get the tone, and so far, there are a few speculations as to why.

Here’s why you may not have gotten the message:

1. Not every cell phone device is compatible with the Alert Ready system that is being used by the province. Click here to check if yours is.
2. Several people reported that the alert tone did not bypass Silent mode on their phones as it was supposed to, so they did not hear the beeping.
3. The alert seems to have only reached devices that were connected to LTE. So even if you were connected to the internet through WiFi, if your data was turned off, you may not have gotten the message.
4. According to several tweets from Telus Support, phones operating on iOS may need to be updated to the latest version (11.3.x) in order to get the alert.

Working out the kinks

There is no response yet from Emergency Management BC, but we expect to hear from them soon.

The testing was being conducted to work out kinks in the system, so hopefully today’s failure to reach almost half of the population of the province will help the Ministry to come up with new solutions.

Until then, we’re happy to report that all of Victoria Buzz staff members did get the alert, so in the event of an emergency, we’ll keep you posted!