![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://uknews.evprotec.com/brits-told-when-when-next-nationwide-armageddon-alert-system-test-may-happen/&media=https://uknews.evprotec.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/0_JHP_MDM_230423ALERT_01.jpg&description=Millions are set to hear a loud alarm from their mobile phones as officials advise the next trial of the emergency alert system should be held in two years' time Nationwide tests of an 'Armageddon' Government emergency alert could take place every two years, a top Whitehall official revealed today. Roger Hargreaves, director of the Cobra emergencies committee unit at the Cabinet Office, told MPs more trials would be carried out, after the "massively successful" test in April. 'It is international standard practice to do regular test messages. I think there is a case for doing it every two years, but we haven't got a ministerial decision on that,' he said. 'Every two years is what we would probably advise ministers but we're yet to get a view on that.' This would pave the way for a test in April 2025. He also revealed one in 10 mobile phones failed to receive during the first nationwide test in April. He blamed network operator Three for millions of devices not receiving the vibrating siren message. Confirming 'about 90%' of handsets got the alert, Mr Hargreaves told the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee: 'We would have hoped to get higher than that. The big drop off in available phones was because one of the networks - Three - the message didn't go through to all users, it went to about 10% of their users in England rather than all of them. 'That was the main driving factor in the number falling below the 95% plus that we had hoped for.' The loud alarm was planned to ring at 3pm on all devices using 4G and 5G networks in the UK on April 23. The alert rang for 10 seconds and displayed a message notifying phone users that no action was needed in response to the test. Some smartphones also read out the message. Mr Hargreaves told MPs: 'Even with what happened with Three it was still massively successful from our perspective because it reached so many more people than any other comparable means of communication that we previously had acc){kind=link}
Millions are set to hear a loud alarm from their mobile phones as officials advise the next trial of the emergency alert system should be held in two years’ time
Nationwide tests of an “Armageddon” Government emergency alert could take place every two years, a top Whitehall official revealed today.
Roger Hargreaves, director of the Cobra emergencies committee unit at the Cabinet Office, told MPs more trials would be carried out, after the “massively successful” test in April.
“It is international standard practice to do regular test messages. I think there is a case for doing it every two years, but we haven’t got a ministerial decision on that,” he said. “Every two years is what we would probably advise ministers but we’re yet to get a view on that.”
This would pave the way for a test in April 2025. He also revealed one in 10 mobile phones failed to receive during the first nationwide test in April. He blamed network operator Three for millions of devices not receiving the vibrating siren message.