Leveraging Femtocells for Dissemination of Early Warning Messages

The timely, reliable and accurate dissemination of early warning messages to targeted recipients under a hazard risk is challenging operation. Of the existing telecommunications infrastructure, public land mobile networks (PLMN) are considered highly useful for dissemination of text-based warning messages, due to the high penetration of mobile services and ability to reach subscribers wherever there is network coverage. However, conventional macrocellular mobile networks are constrained by capacity and/or coverage, causing delay or non-delivery of warning messages. To that end, femtocellular networks, which provide capacity gains and ubiquitous indoor coverage, have emerged as an attractive solution that could complement macrocellular networks in disseminating warning messages. In this paper, we analyze the limitations of existing mobile networks for early warning dissemination, identify the benefits of leveraging femtocells for the purpose of disseminating early warning messages and highlight some possible implementation challenges.