David Megginson

There is a hierachy of cell-phone alert levels in n North America. The highest level (1, "National," formerly "Presidential") can't be turned off, and automatically sets your phone to maximum volume. This is the "NUCLEAR ATTACK IS IMMINENT!!!" level.

In Canada, all alerts, including weather and Amber alerts, are coded to level 1 by CRTC fiat. On newer phones, you can't opt out of any of them, any time of day or night, if you're connected to a Canadian cell tower.

If you live in Ottawa and your phone woke you at 4:30 am today, screeching at max volume — despite being in "sleep" or "do not disturb" mode — for something happening hundreds of kilometres away in another province, once your heartrate slows and you're able to breathe again, the CRTC are the ones to take it up with.

p.s. People without landlines keep their phones by the bed b/c a phone charging in the basement overnight is no use for calling 911 in a sudden emergency, especially for those of us with serious health issues.

#Canada #cellphones

Mar 22 at 10:41amWeb
Show threadEdwin G. 2d ago

@david_megginson Interestingly, my iPhone didn’t ring at max volume for last night’s AMBER alert. Actually, it didn’t ring at all. It received it.

Based on my experience, the alerts don’t bypass the silence switch setting.

Show threadDavid Megginson2d ago

@EdwinG Not sure how old your iPhone is. My spouse's older Android respected silent mode, but newer one won't silence level 1 alerts even in Do Not Disturb or Sleep mode (where I still allow calls from close family in case of emergency).

The workaround seems to be going into airplane mode and enabling web calling, since it removes the cell tower from the equation I won't do that every night, because it's fussy, but it's a good tool for when my health is especially fragile and I need not to be shocked awake.

Show threadEdwin G. 2d ago
@david_megginson It’s about 2 years old (iPhone 15 Pro series) on iOS 26.
Show threadDavid Megginson2d ago

@EdwinG Thanks. And are you on complete silent mode, or is it Apple's equalent of Android's "Do not disturb", where calls from a few designated callers (e.g. your kids or an elderly parent) are still allowed to ring in case of emergency?

(Just trying to troubleshoot here. Apple and Google are both theoretically bound by the same CRTC regs, but Apple might have a workaround.)

Show threadEdwin G. 2d ago
@david_megginson Sleep focus, with allowed designated contacts to punch through. No filters enabled, no apps and no Apple Intelligence filtering.
Show threadDavid Megginson1d ago

@EdwinG I've since asked around, and 2 other iPhone users I know were woken by the blaring klaxon at 4:30 am on Sunday in sleep mode, so it must depend on some specific combination of your device model, OS version, and carrier (ditto for Android).

I especially feel for the one who had spent most of the night trying to get a very young baby to sleep, and had just succeeded 30 minutes before the alert went off. 😢

Show threadEdwin G. 1d ago

@david_megginson I don’t know what to say. 🤷‍♂️

I might have find the secret formula and I don’t even know what it is.

Show threadDavid Megginson1d ago
@EdwinG Being well rested because you weren't shocked out of deep sleep at 4:30 am on Sunday? 🙂
Show threadEdwin G. 1d ago

@david_megginson 😅

Snow made me not-rested 😅😅