BellSouth teams up with Amber Alerts

BellSouth today announced a partnership with the Amber Alerts program that will allow 15,000 BellSouth field technicians across the carrier’s nine-state region to receive electronic alerts about abducted children.

Amber Alerts (America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) is a voluntary partnership between law enforcement agencies and broadcasters. Law enforcement issues emergency bulletins to broadcasters in child-abduction cases and broadcasters in turn alert the public. The partnership was formed in 1996 in response to the kidnapping and murder of nine-year-old Amber Hagerman in Arlington, Texas.

The alerts are transmitted over the television and radio emergency alert system that is used to warn of potential or ensuing calamities such as dangerous weather situations, and reach the field technicians within minutes of being issued by law enforcement agencies. Once the initial alert is issued, they are typically followed by new alerts every two to three hours, more often as new developments emerge.

BellSouth field technicians--who are trained in emergency preparedness, according to the carrier--would receive the alerts on their pagers and laptops. Such alerts provide information concerning the circumstances of the abduction and details on how to contact the law enforcement agency that issued the alert, usually by calling 911. Technicians could also plug their laptops into neighborhood cross-boxes to download a photo of the abducted child.

“With 15,000 techs on the street every day, they have a chance to see something,” BellSouth spokesman Frank May said.

Good PR is already rolling in from law enforcement agencies and children’s foundations. “By arming their field technicians with Amber Alert information, BellSouth is casting a wider net and speeding up the process by which missing children can be found,” said Ernie Allen, president and CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Because the initiative uses equipment already in the field, there is very little incremental cost. But even if the costs were significant, May said, it would still be worth doing--and not just for the public relations value the partnership will bring BellSouth in the eyes of its customers.

“Sure it’s good for the company, but Amber Alerts has already saved fifty lives nationwide,” May said. “This is something we’re doing for the kids and their families, because in the end, they’re the ones that benefit.”

BellSouth was preceded in this effort by SBC Communications, which launched a similar program in California on Feb. 26, and previously in Texas, Oklahoma and Connecticut. SBC is also working toward launching Amber Alerts programs in its Midwest states.

Like BellSouth, SBC got involved in Amber Alert programs on the cheap. But also like BellSouth, SBC believes Amber Alerts is a worthwhile cause regardless of cost, said John Britton, spokesman at SBC. According to the National Center 58,200 non-family child abductions were attempted nationwide in 1999, the most current year for which they have statistics.

“That’s a lot of abductions. It’s staggering,” Britton said. “We’re a part of these communities. We don’t just work here, we live here too. And it’s part of our culture to step up and become part of important efforts like this.”