Under growing public demand for a text-message early warning system against natural disasters, the NCC called a meeting last week with domestic telecom carriers to discuss the feasibility of offering such a service here in Taiwan. But as the required infrastructure is still lacking on the island, it will take at least one more year before the system can be in place.

The Japanese government issued an earthquake warning text message 15 seconds before the earthquake arrived Tokyo, which enabled many to move to a relatively safer place when the earthquake struck.

Legislators across the party line asked the NCC to quickly set up a similar text message system in the event of emergency.

There are 28 million cellphone numbers in Taiwan.

It's a big challenge to send text messages to all the public in the same time in the most efficient manner.

According to Chunghwa telecom, it sent 50,000 text messages to users in Keelung and Hualien before this Tsunami's possible attack on Taiwan.

When the Suhua highway collapsed last year, Ministry of Transportation and Communications also notified road users who were driving in the neighborhood.

But to send massive text messages to mobile phone users to the service areas, a technology called "cell broadcast" is required,

which is not something that can be done immediately. NCC convened a meeting with representatives from the Fire Department and telecommunication service provides and expressed its hope to establish a common platform to integrate information and technology at the soonest possible time to ensure the public get the alarming text message at the shortest time in case of an emergency.