[3] The system was used in the 2019-20 Black Summer Bushfires, with 492,938 landline calls and 4,194,576 text messages sent to residents in affected areas.
[5] The Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements in 2020 found that emergency warning systems were effective tools for governments to use to alert citizens of threats.
The Commission recommended that the review, funding and upgrade of Emergency Alert be considered a priority to ensure it used the best available technology to improve the way warnings are issued, and to better cater to those with a disability and culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
[5] After receiving $2.2 million in funding from the 2021 budget,[6] in August 2021, the Australian Government issued a tender for proposals from suppliers for a cell broadcast-based emergency warning system,[7] with implementation slated for January 2022, and a three-year contract starting the same year.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) says the technology will allow for "near real-time", simultaneous messaging to all devices in a specified area and is unconstrained by telecommunications network congestion, a problem which arose with the current system.