Multimedia Wireless Emergency Alert Gateway
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional wireless emergency alerts (WEA) are limited to plain text and cannot support multimedia content, which restricts the amount of information that can be conveyed during emergency situations, and existing solutions for LTE technology are not practical for broadcasting multimedia content to a large volume of users.
Innovation Solution
The system includes a processor and memory that receive and send wireless emergency alerts with multimedia content, using a new interface to support larger message sizes, and involves a Federal Emergency Management Agency gateway that generates alerts and provides instructions for retransmitting multimedia content to target cells, leveraging existing infrastructure to facilitate multimedia content distribution.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If conventional text-only wireless emergency alerts are used, then the system is simple and infrastructure requirements are minimal, but the amount of information that can be conveyed is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The alert message is divided into two separate parts: a text alert message and associated multimedia content. The text message is transmitted through conventional WEA infrastructure, while the multimedia content is transmitted separately through MBMS infrastructure. This segmentation allows the system to overcome the 90-character limitation without requiring complete system redesign.
Solution Approach 2:
A new interface is introduced between the WEA system and MBMS system to enable multimedia content transmission. This intermediary interface allows the alert message to trigger multimedia content delivery without directly coupling the two systems, maintaining compatibility with existing infrastructure while enabling enhanced functionality.
2Loss of information
If LTE technology is used for multimedia broadcasting, then multimedia content can be transmitted, but existing LTE infrastructure is not practical for broadcasting to large volumes of users
Solution Approach 1:
The MBMS infrastructure, originally designed for multimedia broadcasting, is leveraged to serve the WEA function. By making the MBMS system multi-functional (serving both its original purpose and WEA multimedia transmission), the system can broadcast multimedia content to large volumes of users efficiently without requiring dedicated LTE infrastructure for emergency alerts.
3Loss of information
If the alert message size is increased to include multimedia content, then more information can be conveyed, but the conventional 90-character limit is exceeded
Solution Approach 1:
The alert message is divided into two separate parts: a text alert message and associated multimedia content. The text message is transmitted through conventional WEA infrastructure, while the multimedia content is transmitted separately through MBMS infrastructure. This segmentation allows the system to overcome the 90-character limitation without requiring complete system redesign.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of expanding the message size within the existing WEA dimension (character limit), the system adds a new dimension by introducing separate multimedia content transmission through MBMS. This dimensional approach allows unlimited information capacity while maintaining compatibility with the original 90-character WEA constraint.
Data Source
AI summary
Multimedia content associated with a wireless emergency alert message may be distributed or displayed during emergencies. A Federal Emergency Management Agency gateway may generate a wireless emergency alert and provide to a commercial mobile service provider gateway, the wireless emergency alert with an indication of availability of multimedia content. The multimedia content may be distributed using the broadcast multicast service center.