Speech Technology Magazine Blog » What About Voice, Mr. Bloomberg?

I can’t seem to shake it any more: Every time I pick up and read the local free newspapers that clutter the entrances and exits to the New York subway stations, I come across something that irks me. Usually it’s the shoddy reporting or incomplete coverage of a topic or event. Sometimes it’s the opinions presented in editorials or columns, and quite often it’s the sheer idiocy contained in the letters to the editor. For once, I can say, I was outraged more by the content of a story.

I’m not a big fan of New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s to begin with, but his latest snub of speech technologies is more than I can stand. Calling it a “quantum leap forward,” Bloomberg on Tuesday unveiled at the World Trade Center site a new cell phone emergency alert system being launched in New York and Washington. The system will blast warnings—as text messages only—of terrorist attacks, weather events, traffic conditions, and other immediate concerns deemed too important to live without.

Sounds like a good idea, right? OK, but here’s my first complaint: I’ll need to have a special chip and software installed on my mobile device to receive these messages. Certain smartphones, like Apple’s iPhone 4, already have the circuitry but will require the software. Suddenly, this isn’t a free service any more.

But now for the real rub: The alerts will only be sent as 90-character text messages. Alerts will be based on location, and everyone within a certain area will receive the text messages unless they opt out. I’m still on an phone plan that requires me to pay extra (I think it’s 15 cents) for each text message delivered to my phone. I’d prefer to receive a voice message because they’re included in my plan (I have so many minutes per month that I couldn’t use them all if I had the headset glued to my ear every waking moment). I know the technology exists to deliver alerts as texts, email, voice messages, even faxes. Heck, I’ve written a number of stories about companies that market the technology; I’ve written a number of case studies about schools and governments that have used the technology in times of crisis. The one thing that held true for each of these stories was that the success of the deployment was based on reaching out to citizens in the methods they prefer and that are convenient for them.

The bottom line: I don’t want to have to shell out more coin every time I walk past a cell tower to receive a “seemingly urgent” text alert that may or may not be relevant to my current situation. Granted, I’d like to be warned ahead of time of a pending disaster like 9/11, but if I’m walking through Times Square I don’t need to know about a traffic accident three blocks away, and I certainly don’t want to pay for the information.

via speechtechblog.com