Civil Defence is set to send out another test alarm to New Zealanders' cellphones, this time at a more reasonable hour.
Don't be alarmed this weekend if you hear a sound coming from your phone.
The public didn't react very well to the prior test which came at a very early hour. Photo: rnz
Civil Defence and Emergency Management is testing its new emergency alert system between six o'clock and seven o'clock on Sunday evening.
It's expected to reach a third of all New Zealanders with cellphones and will emit a siren-like sound.
Civil Defence director c said the phone alert was another way of reaching communities.
"We can do a nationwide notification or we can localise it to a fixed geographical area," she told Morning Report.
Civil Defence has partnered with the three major New Zealand networks - Spark, Vodafone, and 2 Degrees - for the alert, but said it wasn't possible to reach all phone owners at this stage.
"The challenge is, because its new technology it takes time for handsets to be upgrade. Older handsets won't be enabled it for this."
Stuart-Black said making sure software and applications are up-to-date would increase the likelihood of the alert being received.
The alarm is expected be less intrusive than the one which went out at 1.30am on a Sunday in October. Stuart-Black said that test was meant to be a lab environment, but was sent out to the public by accident.
