RCR Wireless News' Jeffrey Silva reports that the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have completed the second phase of a pilot program to "design a national digital platform to distribute emergency alerts to cell phones, personal computers and other devices."

This would be a much less annoying (and more useful) replacement for the "this is a test of the emergency alert system" messages that periodically interrupt your favorite TV and radio shows.

"The current EAS [emergency alert system] has its roots in the Cold War, and still relies on technology from that era," says APTS president John Lawson. "You had to be watching one of the major networks or listening to a radio station to have a chance of receiving the alert. What we are announcing today is an alert system for the mobile, networked and digital America of the 21st Century."

Still, Silva says the method of delivering alerts to cell phones and other devices remains unclear. "Last Wednesday's demonstration at public TV station WETA in Arlington, Va. largely focused on the capability of the digital emergency alert system platform, not the last-mile delivery of emergency messages," he writes.

"While [the Department of Homeland Security] has not officially endorsed a technology for emergency wireless alerts, the agency appears to be leaning toward a cell broadcast approach embraced by Holland, South Korea and others, but largely shunned to date by the U.S. mobile phone industry," Silva writes.