Telecommunications in Times of Disasters: Emergency Communication,Public Discontent and Technological Change in Mexico,1985–2017

Abstract

This article compares the co-construction of telecommunication and crisis during the two Mexican earthquakes of 1985 and 2017. Overall, the disasters made existing deficiencies in access to landline telephones and to the internet more visible. In that sense, the quakes can be considered moments of tele(crisis) in Mexico. In both cases, the disasters provoked reflections on broader political and economic problems in Mexican society, such as social inequality, corruption and police violence. In Mexican historiography, the 1985 earthquake is considered a turning point for the rise of independent social movements. The interruption of telecommunications in 1985 affected the Mexican capital for months, which accelerated feelings of crisis as the political and economic centre of the country was cut off. By contrast, in 2017, the interruption of communication was less severe. In addition, the disaster left fewer victims and fewer destroyed buildings than in 1985. Mobile phones and social media offered new possibilities for organising emergency help and communicating news on the disaster. Finally, telecommunications were crucial for emergency help but also for communicating during the crisis and memory-making.

In September 1985, a serious earthquake hit Mexico City. The quake with an 8.1 magnitude on the Richter scale left a city with thousands of victims and destroyed infrastructure, among them important nodes of telecommunication. It took three months until full telephone service was re-established. There is still no consensus on the short-term effects of the disaster: Estimates on the number of victims range between 6,000 and 40,000. In addition, around 400 buildings collapsed and several thousand buildings were damaged (Allier Montaño, 2018, p. 14). Exactly the same day as thirty-two years before, Mexico City experienced a serious earthquake on 19th September 2017. In their historical comparisons, journalists analysed the role of telecommunications for relief activities, highlighting the importance of mobile phones and social networks for rescuing victims.

Taking Mexico as a case study, the article explores the co-production of telecommunications and crisis. I argue that the deficiencies in communication infrastructure became part and parcel of the 1985 earthquake crisis as it was experienced and memorised, while the earthquake disaster in turn accelerated technological modernisation and caused a limited decentralisation of communication infrastructure. While the Mexican government portrayed the reconstruction measures as an indicator of Mexico’s status as an advanced nation, telephone users perceived a continuity of deficiencies. A constant telecrisis had existed from the 1930s onwards, originating from unfulfilled demand and unequal access to telephones. Hence, the disaster nurtured discontent. More than thirty years later, mobile communication changed the ways society dealt with disaster. In 2017, information was available immediately from a large variety of sources, while people in 1985 were disoriented and informed by traditional media. In 2017, discontent focused on the digital divide.

Before analysing the 1985 earthquake, I will provide a brief overview of Mexican telephone history to discuss users’ expectations and their perception of telephone service prior to the disaster. Next, I discuss how these long-debated problems impacted the co-construction of telecommunications and the crisis in 1985. I analyse how the disaster affected telecommunications, focusing on emergency communication, complaints and technological renewal during reconstruction. After providing a brief overview of changes in Mexican telecommunications between the two earthquakes, I show that telecommunications in 2017 were less important for nurturing feelings of crisis than in 1985. However, the disaster once again made political problems, precarious work conditions and unequal access to telecommunications more visible.

A Short History of Mexican Telephone Service, 1880s to 1980s

Telephone service in Mexico dates back to 1881. At first, it was an urban service in the capital and other important Mexican cities. Around the turn of the century, there were roughly 3,000 telephone subscribers in the country. Service expanded significantly during the 1920s but was still limited to an urban clientele. By then, two foreign multinationals, Ericsson and ITT, dominated telephone service, operating two unconnected networks which generated discontent among users. By the mid-1930s, the government clearly perceived telecommunications as a public service that should serve the entire Mexican population (Cárdenas de la Peña, 1987; Grunstein Dickter, 2005). Consequently, the Ministry of Communication requested the companies to offer a more user-friendly service. At the same time, journalists and users mobilised for an interconnection of networks while rural communities demanded access to the network. Petitions from rural communities to the Mexican president indicate that people perceived the telephone as a protection in case of political conflicts or isolation during the rainy season since the 1930s (Mejía, 1937; Presidente del Comisariado Ejidal, Omitlán al Presidente, 1936). Hence, telecommunications were already considered necessary in times of crises. Meanwhile, the telephone companies directed their advertisements to upper- and middle-class users. An important topic in the advertisements was the telephone’s role as saviour during emergencies, such as sudden illness or robberies (‘Advertisement Compañía Telefónica’ La Familia, 1935a, p. 41; ‘Advertisement Compañía Telefónica’ La Familia, 1935b, p. 39). Hence, it is fair to assume that both rural and urban users shared the expectation that telephone service was needed in emergency situations.

Between the late 1940s and the 1980s, users’ expectations frequently clashed with unequal network expansion and service deficiencies under the condition of a monopoly. After controversial negotiations on a merger of the two telephone companies during the Second World War, a new private enterprise, Teléfonos de México, was founded in 1947. Although the interconnection of the two networks was reached in 1948, users’ discontent continued. People sent complaint letters to the Ministry of Communication, founded telephone user unions and occasionally organised off-hook strikes. The monopoly reacted with ignorance and was generally backed by state authorities (Berth, 2020).

In the years of the ‘economic miracle’ from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s, the Mexican government invested in public infrastructure. As a result, Mexican telephony expanded significantly during the 1960s and 1970s. Between 1960 and 1970, the number of lines doubled from more than 500,000 to more than one million. Throughout the decade, the press published optimistic articles promising that soon all Mexicans would have access to a telephone (Excélsior, 1960; Novedades, 1965). In 1972, the Mexican government transformed the private monopoly Telmex (Teléfonos de México) into a state enterprise. Only one year later, the number of telephones surpassed two million, in 1976 three million and in 1978 four million (Cárdenas de la Peña, 1987, pp. 308–309). Throughout these decades, the government portrayed the Mexican telephone history as a success story (Anonymous, 1964, p. 20).

However, there was still unfulfilled demand for telephone lines as well as discontent with the quality of calls. By the mid-1970s, nearly 45% of the telephone lines were concentrated in Mexico City (Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes, 1976, p. 112). Journalists increasingly criticised the deficient telephone service in the metropole. According to Chayo Uriarte, who regularly wrote short columns on telephone use, people were outraged over wrong connections or exaggerated bills (Uriarte, 1972, p. 28). Consequently, the Ministry of Communication registered more than 2.46 million complaints in 1975. Their number doubled to more than 4 million in 1979, which indicates both growing telephone use and growing discontent with service (Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes, 1979, p. 163). Anger focused on the state monopoly; hence, the discontent also had a political dimension. From 1982 on, a debt crisis strongly affected the Mexican economy. It limited the resources for state investment in telecommunications, especially in rural areas, and generated uncertainty in the Mexican population (Cárdenas Sánchez, 2015, pp. 657–679). Overall, there was a constant telecrisis between the 1930s and the 1980s, resulting from unequal access and shoddy service, which shaped the experience of the 1985 earthquake.

The 1985 Earthquake: Crisis, Historiography and Memory

Immediately after the disaster, the situation in Mexico City was chaotic, and the metropolis was cut off from important communication media. The main television station, Televisa, stopped broadcasting as its headquarters had been damaged; telephone service was interrupted as well. Temporarily, the radio filled the gap, but this was insufficient to calm people who were wondering about the fate of their family members. Hence, desperate people approached radio, television and newspaper headquarters to inquire about news. For example, they requested information at El Universal offices as the newspaper possessed a few satellite telephones at that time.

Immediately after the quake, observers diagnosed a severe catastrophe in the history of Mexican telephony. The quake destroyed important telephone exchanges in Mexico City, including the Victoria exchange that connected all other switchboards in the metropolitan area. 4,000 telephone operators found their workplace destroyed, eleven had died, and others were injured. In addition, the quake had damaged twenty-six telecommunications buildings and thirteen telephone exchanges throughout the country (Fernández Christlieb, 1991, p. 31; Teléfonos de México S.A., 1991, pp. 166–167).

The interruption of communication deepened feelings of emergency in the city. People could neither find out if their relatives and friends were doing well nor call for help in case of difficulties. Hence, it was the absence of telephones that shaped people’s experience of the disaster. While telephone service had been deficient in the past, the long interruption of up to three months increased discontent about high rates and long waiting times for repairs throughout the city.

In the 1980s, access to mobile telecommunications limited live storytelling to a few actors, among them journalists. Jacobo Zabludovsky, who worked for the TV channel Televisa, was one of the few people with access to a mobile phone in his car. On 19 September, he drove through the city and reported his impressions to a radio audience. His first-hand account also became part of public memory as Mexican media retransmitted the recording each year in their programs to commemorate the earthquake. Recently, the newspaper El Universal has made available the recording on an interactive map allowing users to hear Zabludowsky’s description of the destruction (‘La Crónica’ El Universal, 2015). Hence, telecommunications also influenced the experiences and memories of the crisis.

The earthquake hit Mexico during an economic crisis and a political transition. By 1985, the Mexican economy was still affected by the 1982 debt crisis, which was the worst recession Mexico experienced after the 1930s. Roughly three months after its outbreak, President Miguel de la Madrid (1982–1988) took over the presidency in December 1982 and opted for a liberalisation of the economy. His administration became known for the rise of a new generation of technocrats in Mexican politics who had been trained in the United States (Ai Camp, 2010; Hamnett, 2019, pp. 362–365). By early 1985, the economy had experienced a slight recuperation, which was reversed by the disaster. The latter served as an X-ray (Gerulis-Darcy, 2008, p. 128) that made many problems in Mexican society more visible, among them precarious work conditions, corruption in the real estate sector, and police violence. In this context, public criticism of telephone service was turned into an argument for privatising telecommunications (Clifton, 2000, pp. 89–91). As a result, government-friendly media also increasingly covered critical assessments of Telmex’s service. Hence, for users, it became easier to make their concerns public, a process accelerated by the 1985 disaster.

Mexican historiography has considered the disaster as an event that gave rise to new social movements for the improvement of urban services. Discontent was expressed in numerous rumours circulating in the capital. Chronicles by leading Mexican intellectuals, such as Elena Poniatowska or Carlos Monsiváis, also denounced the Mexican state and influenced long-term public memory of the disaster. In addition, people were annoyed about political corruption, as it turned out that building contractors had ignored official codes. As a result, a large number of buildings collapsed during the disaster (Ai Camp, 2010; Leal Martínez, 2016; Monsiváis, 2005; Smith, 1991, pp. 388–389; Walker, 2013, p. 177).

Many Mexicans perceived the government’s crisis management as too hesitant and hence tried to organise self-help projects in their districts. Only a few days after the disaster, people had already founded grassroots associations. Several weeks later, several organisations joined forces in the Overall Coordinating Committee of Disaster Victims (Coordinadora Única de Damnificados). Some activists of these new organisations remained important for social organisation in the late 1980s. The governing party perceived the foundation of independent social organisations as a risk endangering its rule (Walker, 2013, pp. 188–195).

The 1985 Disasters’ Effect on Telecommunications

Overall, the earthquake provoked three important changes for telecommunications: first, the development of an emergency communication system, second, the intensification of complaints on service deficiencies, and third, the introduction of digital technology as well as a decentralisation of switchboards.

Still a month after the quake, the national telephone service was affected by the damage, which is why radio amateurs tried to fill the gap (Beauregard, 2017; Luhrs, 1986, pp. 41–42). To improve the situation, the government established a system for emergency communication consisting of three elements: a special telephone service to inquire about missing persons, the installation of a CB radio message system, and phone booths operating free of charge.

The case of Locatel reveals that, already prior to the quake, a high demand for reliable emergency communication had existed. In 1981, an alliance of state institutions had installed a special line for emergency inquiries in Mexico City, called Locatel (Servicio Público de Localización Telefónica). It was a twenty-four-hour service that informed on missing, detained or injured persons based on the Mexican telematics system. Additional telephones were installed in hospital emergency departments and the central hospital of the Red Cross. Owing to high demand, the system was enlarged in 1982 and equipped with further lines (Cárdenas Cedujo, 1989, pp. 60–75). After the earthquake, people called for medical advice, but also asked increasingly for help in an emotional crisis originating from the disaster. As a result, the government agreed with Telmex that calls to Locatel from public phones could be made free of charge. This agreement has remained in place until the early twenty-first century (Gutiérrez Guerrero, 2008, pp. 46–47). Despite these short-term measures for improving communication in the devastated capital, concerns about deficient telephone service increased.

The quake reinforced the controversial debate on shortcomings in Mexican telecommunications. As already mentioned, the disaster had made existing problems more visible. Telephone users linked interrupted communication with shoddy service in the prior decades and complained on an unprecedented scale. In late 1985, television news as well as several dailies offered sections where users could denounce deficient service publicly (Ortega Olivares, 2012, pp. 245–246). This was also a reaction to the fact that the 05 line for reporting problems had remained out of service for several weeks after the disaster. A caricature in the newspaper Novedades shows that users experienced this as a continuity. A couple has a conversation standing in front of their personal telephone. While the woman lists the number of services not working, the man comments: ‘Before the earthquake they did not work neither’ (‘Cosas de Rossas’, 1985, p. 4).

Finally, the earthquake led to a renewal of technological equipment and a decentralisation of telecommunications. It accelerated the introduction of digital exchanges and electronic switchboards. In addition, Telmex designed a system of decentralised telephone exchanges in the city to avoid a serious interruption during future disasters. The programme, ambitiously called Plan México, aimed at connecting all telephone exchanges to each other based on either optical fibre or microwave links (‘En Marcha’, El Universal, 1986).

On 2 August 1986, President Miguel de la Madrid opened the decentralised telephone system in Mexico City. It consisted of four digital exchanges located in the centre, south, west and north of the city. Equipped with optical fibre and digital radio, the new system could manage more than 20 million calls per month, which was a 70% increase. Contrary to the prior system, each exchange could take control over the other exchanges in case of emergency (Rodríguez, 1986a, pp. 4–15). The Mexican press echoed the triumphant official language in its coverage: For example, the newspaper El Nacional commented on the acquisition of digital telephone exchanges, portraying Mexico as a vanguard among ‘first world nations with the greatest infrastructure for oral communication’. ¹ However, decentralisation was limited to Mexico City, where all important nodes were concentrated (Santiago, 2014, p. 309). Hence, the capital remained the heart of Mexican telecommunications. After a period of high investment to ensure adequate coverage of the 1986 World Cup in football, construction work slowed down. For example, the repair of earthquake-related damage at three important telephone exchanges continued until 1988 (Clifton, 2000, p. 228). Two years after the earthquake, the journalist Manu Dornbierer diagnosed a severe telephone crisis in the country:

It has been known for years that there are not enough telephone lines in the country. With or without earthquake, this is an old reality; but the company connected more and more devices, more and more numbers were hung to the existing lines, so to speak, and the official propaganda has been based precisely on the fallacy of boasting a millionaire number of telephones without revealing the exact number of lines. The fact is that today we find ourselves, among many others, in front of a terrible telephone crisis. (Dornbierer, 1987)

Hence, we can see how the co-construction of telecommunications and crisis persisted until the late 1980s.

In-between the two earthquakes of 1985 and 2017, telecommunications in Mexico changed significantly. Telmex was privatised in 1990. In the first half of the 1990s, the firm still maintained its monopoly position. Although the long-distance, mobile phone and internet markets gradually opened for competition, Telmex remained dominant up to the early twenty-first century, with market shares hovering at 70% for internet and mobile phone (Pérez Chavolla, 2002, pp. 49–50; Santiago, 2014). Also, rates were comparatively high as several Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) surveys indicated around 2010. The 2013 Telecommunications and Broadcasting Reform led to a constitutional amendment that recognised the right of access to telecommunications and broadcasting; it also recognised both areas as public services of general interest. Another outcome of the reform was a new, more independent regulatory body: the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) (Álvarez, 2015; Santiago, 2014). Nevertheless, large commercial interests continued to dominate investment in telecommunications while rural regions remained underserved. The first independent networks in indigenous communities sometimes suffered from a lack of local political support (González, 2020, pp. 110–113). In 2008, concessions for a fibre optics network were provided to a consortium including Televisa, Telefónica Movistar and Megacable, strengthening their market position. Hence, there were more options for Mexican consumers. Discontent with Telmex service persisted as statistics of the Office of the Federal Office of the Consumer (Procuraduría Federal del Consumidor) demonstrate: In 2008, Telmex and Telcel ranked third and fourth among the enterprises on which consumers complained most. ² By then, there were more than 75 million mobile telephone subscriptions; a number that rose to more than 114 million in 2017. Also, the percentage of Mexicans using the internet increased dramatically from 22% in 2008 to 64% in 2017 (The World Bank, 2017). These two services enlarged opportunities for emergency communication during the 2017 earthquake.

The 2017 Earthquake: Crisis, Social Media and Digital Divide

On 19th September, another severe earthquake with a strength of 7.1 hit Mexico City. It was of smaller magnitude and its movements affected buildings not as much as thirty-two years before. Its epicentre was located in the Mexican South, encompassing the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Tabasco as well as the Southern part of Mexico City. It affected more than 5,100 buildings in the metropolis, mostly medium-sized buildings with four to seven floors. Overall, thirty-eight buildings collapsed and 228 people died in Mexico City (Allier Montaño, 2018, pp. 16–18). Although the disaster came as a shock to the city’s inhabitants, its consequences were far less dramatic than in 1985.

The lower number of victims was also a result of improved prevention measures and construction codes. In the years after the earthquake, Mexico established a national system of civil protection as well as a centre of disaster prevention. In addition, brigades of volunteers had continued and professionalised their work from 1985 on. Each 19th September, an earthquake simulation was realised in Mexico City parallel to commemoration activities. Prevention measures, simulations and memory-making reduced the vulnerability to disaster. In 1991, for example, Mexico introduced the first public earthquake early-warning system in the world. In addition, the government had tightened building and construction requirements. Both state institutions and civil society had learned from the 1985 disaster (Díaz-Fañas et al., 2019; Instituto de Investigaciones Legislativas, 2019; Reddy, 2020).

Once again, the disaster hit Mexico in a period of political crisis, this time nine months before the 2018 presidential elections. After the historic election in 2000, which broke the long-term political monopoly of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), two subsequent presidents of the National Action Party (PAN) governed the country. In 2012, the PRI had won the elections again, but only with a narrow lead. After the 2014 mass disappearance of forty-three students in Ayotzinapa and President Enrique Peña Nieto’s involvement in severe corruption scandals, his popularity hit rock bottom. In 2017, political parties were already preparing for electoral campaigns. As they considered financial support for disaster victims as important for their public image, most parties donated public funds they had received from the National Electoral Institute (INE) for their campaign (Instituto de Investigaciones Legislativas, 2019). As in 1985, the city also witnessed a wave of spontaneous solidarity: People participated in rescue activities and raised funds for disaster victims.

Although the economic situation was more stable than in 1985, inequality had remained an important problem in Mexican society. In 2017, Mexico had recovered from the 2008 recession with economic growth rates hovering at 2% in 2017 and 2018. However, consumer prices were relatively high, while still 60% of the Mexican labour force worked in the informal sector in 2018. Minimum wages were insufficient to cover workers’ basic needs (Hamnett, 2019, pp. 434–436). Soon after the catastrophe, disaster victims held their first assemblies and demanded reliable information from the city government. By November 2017, victims from different parts of the city founded the Collective of United Victims of Mexico City (Colectivo Damnificados Unidos de la Ciudad de México). They mainly opposed reconstruction plans based on a densification of housing and credit schemes for victims, fearing that the real estate business would take advantage of the situation (Ponce Arancibia, 2021). Although earthquake victims once again founded associations, their size and political relevance remained far behind the 1985 movements.

The repetition of disaster on the same date as in 1985 caused a wave of historical comparisons in private and in public. It was also a moment of memory-making and reassessing the history of disaster in Mexico City. Contrary to 1985, the 2017 quake had no devastating impact on telecommunications. In fact, mobile phone service was only interrupted partially for a few hours after the quake, while the landline phone was less relevant. Many journalists compared the role of telecommunications during the two disasters, concluding that technology had made a significant difference in 2017. After the short interruption of service, people used social networks to search for lost persons and coordinate aid throughout the city. In several cases, people among the rubble managed to send WhatsApp messages and could be rescued as a result. However, social networks increased confusion as people also distributed rumours and unconfirmed news. Hence, a group of friends, among them journalists, activists and programmers, created the initiative #Verificado 19s: they designed a website with a map where they published verified information on demolished buildings, shelter and collection centres for relief supplies. Soon, the initiative had 36,000 followers on Twitter who shared the information. In addition, the hashtag #revisamigrieta (check my crack) became very popular. Users uploaded photos of damaged buildings and received immediate feedback on the damage from architects or engineers (Allier Montaño, 2018, p. 19). Similar to social movements in 1985, the social media activists argued that they were filling a void left by the Mexican state. In a presentation video on their website, several participants related to their lack of confidence in politics. They also mentioned other protest movements using social networks, such as the Movimiento 132, that had rallied for a democratisation of media communication in 2012 (Hernández, 2019).

Finally, the disaster sparked a debate on the government’s national digital strategy. Critical observers bemoaned that many people in rural areas still lacked access to digital infrastructure. The Mexican Association for the Right to Information (Amedi) highlighted that the IFT had delayed the public consultation on the emergency communication protocol in early 2017. In addition, the digital divide excluded people in rural regions from emergency communication. By 2017, there was an average proportion of 66.4% mobile telephone users in rural areas. In some Mexican states, such as Chiapas or Oaxaca, the percentage of households with access to the internet was still below 30% (Martínez-Domínguez & Mora-Rivera, 2020, p. 4; OECD, 2017, p. 93).

Conclusion

Telecrisis in Mexico had evolved over a long time period. It resulted from gaps between official discourse and the inability to fulfil demand; a situation worsening in times of economic crisis and disaster. It was a political crisis originating from a governance model in telecommunications that favoured companies’ interests over those of users. Telecrisis also had an economic dimension as people lacked money to pay for an expensive service, especially when the period of the ‘Mexican miracle’ had come to an end. The debt crisis also affected the state’s capacity to maintain programmes for rural telephony that had expanded significantly in the 1960s and 1970s. The government and the business community had their own perception of telecrisis in the 1980s. In their view, problems with telecommunications originated from the state enterprise and hence could be solved by re-privatisation. However, this vision turned out to be short-sighted as service deficiencies persisted under the private monopoly. Hence, it is not surprising that the company continued to receive high numbers of complaints in the early twenty-first century. Nevertheless, telecrisis changed its face. During the 2017 emergency, it was no longer a lack of phones that mattered but access to the internet.

The 1985 earthquake accelerated an incipient transformation of Mexican telecommunications in the areas of emergency communication and digital technology. In addition, the serious interruption of communications caused a political initiative for decentralising the telephone network. However, this effort remained limited to Mexico City. The disaster made deficiencies in telephone service more visible. Interrupted lines and frequent failures nurtured feelings of crisis. As Telmex was a state monopoly, it also contributed to the opposition against a government losing legitimacy. While politicians and firm representatives used the disaster as an excuse for deficiency, telephone users and journalists complained on an unprecedented scale. In 2017, the discontent, by contrast, focused on the digital divide impeding adequate disaster responses in rural communities.

In 1985, the absence of telecommunications shaped the perception of the crisis. In 2017, people considered telecommunications an important tool for relief. At that time, it was far easier to use telecommunications for rescue activities and coordinate support for earthquake victims. After the 2017 earthquake, people used social media or chats to spread the news immediately. Hence, mobile phones became a ‘life technology’ but also served to distribute rumours on a massive scale (Çelik, 2011, pp. 100–103). Once again, initiatives from below were important for relief work. This was also true for telecommunications, as the verificado19s initiative provided reliable information in social networks. The 2017 debates also show that the memories of the 1985 quake are still relevant for contemporary Mexican society. In fact, there are many similarities regarding the co-production of telecommunications and crisis. As in 1985, a natural disaster caused a controversy over high rates and the ongoing divide in access to communications. Discontent over a lack of access to telecommunications intensified during the 2020 pandemic, focusing on access to education. In October 2020, the executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL) declared that the digital divide was ‘the new face of inequality’ (Saldaña, 2020). From a historical perspective, however, unequal access to telecommunications had persisted throughout the twentieth century, leaving rural people disconnected in emergencies.

On 19th September 2022, once again, an earthquake of 7.7 magnitude struck Mexico, affecting mainly the states of Michoacán and Colima, although minor effects were also felt in Mexico City. The repetition activated memories of the prior disasters and provoked speculations on social media about whether earthquakes were more likely to happen on 19th September. In parallel, the government implemented a new system of earthquake alerts via cell phones and announced it would be fully operating in 2023. Based on a cell broadcast system, it allows sending text messages and a special sound to all cell phones in a certain area, independent of internet access (López, 2023).