How is the public informed about disaster risk:
112 Iceland alert system (including dispatches), which is used by emergency responders in Iceland (including the police and Civil Protection) is used to send messages to people when it is deemed appropriate and decided by the person in charge of the operation at any given time.
The SMS system works in such a way that a message is requested to be delivered to people in a certain geographical area (the coordinates are sent to the telephone companies along with the text). The telephone company’s system calculates which telephones are in the area and then sends the invitations to them.
The technology (the system) does not offer the possibility to guarantee that all devices within the area receive the message and that devices outside the area do not.
Messages not being delivered to phones within the area or to phones outside the area happen and it is estimated that the cases are around 9-10%. Despite these shortcomings, the SMS messages have been useful and served their purpose. It is a common misconception that SMS messages can be guaranteed to be delivered to all telephones located in a certain geographical area or within the „fence“ set up (coordinates). These invitations are in addition to other ways to inform the population about danger, but examples of other ways are the media, e.g. radio, television and the internet.