PR releases

Celltick's LiveScreen operated as mobile emergency alert system during Tsunami crisis in Sri Lanka

The mobile broadcast system on MTN Networks kept working while other communication systems collapsed. Users received real-time information about danger areas, hospital help-lines and supplies distribution directly to their phone screens

LiveScreen, the interactive mobile broadcast solution of Celltick Technologies, was used as a mass emergency alert system during the Tsunami crisis in Sri Lanka. MTN Networks, the country's leading mobile operator, used the system to broadcast to its users ongoing real-time updates on the situation along the coasts, to warn people from going to dangerous areas and to inform on hospital help-lines, the location of supplies distribution centres and collection points for donations. The system operated flawlessly, despite the huge load on the network which made other communication means, such as voice calls and SMS, highly unreliable.

"Celltick's system addressed a lot of the issues which we faced in the aftermath of the Tsunami", says Thivanka Rangala, VP R&D and Finance in MTN.
"It was valuable when we tried to alert customers and provide emergency messages to many subscribers in real time, while SMS was hopeless".

MTN has been using Celltick's LiveScreen for the last year as a service to increase usage of its mobile services. The service, which is branded "Zero77 live", broadcasts ongoing information and entertainment messages directly to thousands of phone screens while they are in idle mode. Users can then access a variety of service just by clicking the OK button. Critically, the "Zero77 live" delivers the messages via Celltick's mobile broadcast technology, and this is what made it into such a valuable tool in time of emergency. Because it is the only method to reach the entire subscriber base in real time and because it consumes virtually no bandwidth, mobile broadcast is the ideal method to communicate with people during emergencies when timing is critical and when networks are overloaded.

Following the Tsunami, MTN suspended all the regular broadcasts in the "Zero
77 live" service and dedicated it to informing the public. The messages were even sent in a format that can be forwarded, and thus even people who were not on the service on the eve of the disaster could receive the messages from their friends and family. MTN also used the system's interactive capability and allowed its subscribers to donate to the relief efforts simply by clicking in reaction to a message.

"We are happy to see our system taking part in alleviating the suffering following this terrible tragedy", says Celltick's CEO, Yossi Wellingstein. "It is not the first time it has shown its ability to handle emergencies. Another one of our customers, Hutchison India, used it in 2003 during a terror attack in Mumbai, and there too it proved to be an efficient and valuable method to communicate with the public".

Following the Tsunami crisis in Asia many observers and analysts opined that a robust public alert system could have saved many of the people who perished in the disaster. Many suggested to use mobile networks to convey emergency alerts, since the ubiquity of mobile phones assures a widespread message distribution directly to the hands of the public. However, in times of crisis, when it is crucial to reach the whole public quickly, conventional methods such as SMS and voice calls, fail. Sending a single message to a few millions of people with these methods would take many hours, even days, and thus be useless. Mobile broadcast, on the other hand, can do it in seconds, no matter how many people need to be informed.

Celltick is pioneering a new breed of alert systems, relying on the unique capabilities of cell broadcast. Its special product for these tasks, MassAlert, is now being evaluated by governments and security agencies around the world.

About Celltick

Celltick is the world leader in interactive mobile broadcasting. LiveScreen, its flagship product, is the first platform that drives usage of mobile Value Added Service (VAS) on a mass scale. Millions of users are already connected to Celltick's systems worldwide with a significant user base increasing operators' data ARPU. The company is headquartered in the UK with offices in China, India and an R&D centre in Israel.

About MTN

MTN Networks operates its mobile network in Sri Lanka under the brand "Dialog GSM". The country's largest operator, MTN is leading the mobile industry in Sri Lanka since the late 1990's. It currently has more than a million subscribers, spread across all the island's nine provinces. It is a fully owned subsidiary of Telekom Malaysia Bhd., Asia's telecommunications giant.