Carriers launch Amber Alerts over wireless

Most of the country's wireless carriers today flipped the switch that connects their networks to the regional law enforcement's Amber Alerts networks, allowing customers with messaging capabilities to receive instant missing children notices from local authorities.

Amber technically stands for America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response, but the acronym was constructed to commemorate Amber Hagerman, a nine-year-old girl from Arlington, Texas, who was kidnapped and later murdered. After the murder in 1996, Dallas area broadcasters worked with local law enforcement to create a notification system to help find missing children. Since then the program has spread to all 50 states, and is now a federally sanctioned program coordinated by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).

Amber Alerts are broadcast across the Internet, over radio and TV and even on public displays such as electronic highway signs in the area where the child has gone missing. Today, however, those alerts can be pushed directly to cell phones. Users can opt in for the program and receive the Alerts free of charge.

The big five carriers are all launched the service on their networks today as well as Alltel, Dobson Communications, RCC/Unicel and U.S. Cellular. Syniverse Technologies, HP, Oracle, SunGard Availability Software, Verizon Information Technology and Integrated Research donated the software and infrastructure.