No charges from emergency messages
The Greek government shot down reports that the state and customers would be charged for the text messages sent to Greek mobile phones in case of an emergency.
Government sources said the test on Saturday was conducted through an agreement between the Ministry of Digital Governance and the country’s telecom providers.
“To have a charge, you first need a relevant agreement [with the companies], which doesn’t exist,” the same sources said.
According to a press release from the General Secretariat for Civil Protection on Saturday, the messages are sent using Cell Broadcast, which allows for messages to be sent to multiple mobile telephone users in a defined area at the same time.
The new system will sent messages to mobile phones in areas under threat in the event of a natural disaster will receive text messages with helpful information.
The government sources said these messages are unstructured data and, once the system is up and running, will be sent directly from Civil Protection, which means there will be no charge.
The SMS system was introduced as an interim solution until the 112 European Union emergency hotline becomes functional as of January 2020.
