The government has said there won't be an emergency alert service test today - despite its own website claiming a test was happening.
The government tested its new system, which works via cell towers, on every mobile phone in the UK in its first nationwide test on Sunday, at 3pm, but the alert appeared not to work on some phones, while others received the message hours after it was sent out.
The test was supposed to send a 10-second alarm and message notification to all 4G and 5G compatible phones, but people on certain networks reported being left out.
The official government website, gov.uk, had posted that 'a service test of the UK Emergency Alerts system' would take place 'today', Tuesday, April 25.
However, It is understood the message was not meant to be uploaded and it related to an internal operator test which would not be sent to the public. The government made it clear to the Manchester Evening News that no public test of the emergency alert system was ever scheduled to take place on Tuesday and the website message was put up in error.
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The original message on the site read: "This is a mobile network operator test of the UK Emergency Alerts service. You do not need to take any action. To find out more, visit gov.uk/alerts."
The Cabinet Office has since tweeted that the alert won't be taking place today.
"There are media reports claiming the Government is testing the #EmergencyAlerts system again today. This is completely untrue. There are no plans to test system again," they posted.
The system has been designed to warn the public if there is a danger to life nearby. In future, a similarly loud notification and message will be sent to people who are in a life-threatening situation, such as flooding and wildfires.
Following Sunday's nationwide test, the Cabinet Office said the “vast majority of compatible phones” received the alert as part of what was said to be the biggest public communications exercise carried out in the UK. But it added that it was aware that was not delivered to some mobile phones.
Customers on the Three mobile phone network were among those to report not receiving the communication test. The network provider said it would be working with the government to understand what had happened.
A small number of people also took to social media to flag that they had not been able to make or receive calls since the alarm went off on their device. The Cabinet Office stated that engineers had not spotted a trend of phone functions failing to work afterwards, but said officials were in the early stages of analysing the results of the trial run.
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