Australia's first nationwide trial of AusAlert, the emergency notification system due to launch in October, has exposed significant gaps in coverage, with many people across the country reporting they did not receive the test alert. The system is intended to broadcast urgent warnings about natural disasters, security incidents and public health emergencies to virtually every mobile device in Australia, so failures in this initial test raise concerns about its reliability ahead of going live.

The test was run at around 2pm AEST and was designed to push an alert tone and a "TEST MESSAGE" notification to mobile phones, smartwatches and tablets nationwide. Widespread reports of missed alerts point to substantial delivery shortcomings, prompting questions over whether the system will perform reliably in a genuine emergency when it becomes operational next month.