The Internet is good for many things, but not good for all things. Sometimes the limitations are based on bandwidth (Internet television is a good example), sometimes on a lack of market penetration (try using chat, or e-mail with someone who doesn't have a computer), and sometimes people just aren't online when you want to communicate with them. This doesn't matter much on most days, but what if today a hurricane is approaching or the local refinery is burping toxic gases? Unless we are online at that moment, actively looking for news, there is not much the Internet can do to warn us of impending disaster. But it is not just the Internet that is lacking. We really don't have a good way — short of those Civil Defense siren tests I remember from my childhood — to notify everyone at the same time that there is a problem. For all our technology, are sirens still the best we can do?

There are a couple alternate solutions. In Martinez, California, they have an automated telephone system for informing citizens of problems at the many local oil refineries. When there is a problem, the system starts dialing numbers from a phone list ONE NUMBER AT A TIME, sending out the warning. It's like those automated phone wake-up calls at hotels, except this one says to shut your windows or stay indoors or head for the hills, depending on the nature of the disaster. But that system is expensive and takes a long time to inform everyone of the problem. It doesn't scale well, either. Replace Martinez with Los Angeles and it wouldn't work at all. What's needed is more of a broadcast solution.

Well we have one of those, too — the U.S. Weather Radio System. If a storm is coming, this system is activated, sending alarms and information simultaneously to special radios. The system is cheap, scaleable, but is really only useful for weather emergencies affecting large areas. It's not very useful, for example, to warn people living near a crime scene that a gunman is in their neighborhood. And Weather Radio has lots of false alarms that desensitize people over time. I turned mine off long ago, it was such a distraction.

A few years ago, the Internet offered us what we called push technology that sent customized data to just those people who said they wanted to receive it. But push, exemplified by the glorious failure of PointCast, was not a success. And of course, it didn't solve the problem of how to get word when we weren't online.

Fortunately, as of last week there is a new use for an old technology that may solve this problem elegantly. A Canadian company called the Allport Group introduced a patented method of using telephone caller ID services as a means of community notification. This could be a big deal.

Caller ID, which lives on the phone line whether you pay for it or not, is just one of a number of telephone services that function without your having to answer the telephone. There are a whole series of protocols that can be used by the phone company to turn equipment on and off, send identifying data, or poll premises equipment, all of which are taken advantage of by the Allport system. What's required to put this technology to use for notification is a device at your house to accept the message, and maybe sound an alarm and a system down at the phone company to generate that message and alarm.

This isn't rocket science. The notification device just plugs in the phone line like an external caller ID box. Or, it can be built right into the phone. On the other end, there is a personal computer running the notification application and connected over a network of almost any type to one or many telephone switches. The switch, itself, requires no new software at all.

This is a selective broadcast application. It can send a message to one phone line or a million lines at the same time. The recipients of the message can be the whole town, all the volunteer firemen, or just the people downwind of the refinery. The message is up to 150 characters and can say anything from, "Soccer practice is canceled for tomorrow," to, "Run for your lives!"

I think this is a good idea, but it is one that requires a certain political will to make it happen. The governor of Georgia has talked about buying a Weather Radio for every home in his state. Well, this is better than Weather Radio, but probably requires a similar purchase commitment. Most of the system is already there, just waiting to be used for this purpose. But it isn't useful unless everyone has it. Maybe we should require everyone to have such a device. Maybe we can get telephone manufacturers to put this capability in all phones. Or maybe we can get the power company to subsidize it.

The power company? Here's one of the sad truths of the electric power industry: when the lights go out, the only way the power company has of knowing where the problem is and how extensive it is comes from the calls we place to them complaining. There is no way for most electric utilities to poll their own customers. But with the Allport notification system, it is a simple matter of querying the notification device and asking whether it is running on AC or battery backup. Instantly, down at the power company, a computer screen can show the total extent of the blackout.

Maybe we can take the technology even further by creating Internet-based services that people could subscribe to and pay for. An alarm could ring with when your favorite stock hit a certain price or the pollen count reached unhealthy levels. Or your kid's teacher could send home an extra copy of the homework assignment, just in case the other one was eaten by the dog.

This is a technology that could be very useful. But more importantly, it is one that could save lots of lives. Of course, we wouldn't need it if everyone had always-on Internet connections like DSL and cable modems, but most people don't have such connections and many people won't have them, ever. But we all have telephones. If it takes an act of the legislature to put a $20 device in every home, that sounds cheap to me.

In the old days, we'd ring the church bells to announce good news and bad, but in the era of the Internet and whole neighborhoods that don't know each other, maybe Allport — or something like it — can be our virtual church bell. This is technology that has been around for a few years, looking for the right champions in the horribly fractured world of the phone company. Now it is back in the hands of the inventor, Douglas Allport. I think it is worth a look.