alan_m wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Makes no sense to have to sign up, makes a lot more sense to have the
system call all the places in the area which will be affected.

How are they going to find the telephone numbers to ring?

Very easily with mobile phones, they can get that
from the bases the mobile is currently using.

In a typical UK street there may be a dozen different companies providing
the telephone service

But the system does know where the number physically
is, because it needs to know that with calls made to 999
which dont have anyone capable of telling the operator
where they are calling from.

and each has to legally protect their customers data.

Not from the 999 service or not from a utility that uses
that data to warn people about urgent maintenance
that is about to happen or about a flood etc.

Many phone users chose not to have their telephone numbers published and
definitely don't want it shared to a third party.

They get no choice on that with the 999 service.

Any such system has to be opt in.

It isnt with the 999 service.

That's not correct with urgent maintenance.

In a typical UK street there may be a dozen different companies supplying
the electricity and gas. For instance I live in the SE of England but pay
for my energy by way of a Scottish company.

Irrelevant to who is actually doing the urgent maintenance work.

The company responsible for the maintenance of the infrastructure don't
have legal access to personal information about gas/electricity customers

They dont need that when whoever is doing the maintenance
work can get the data on what phones need to be called from
the same database that the 999 service uses.

and they don't necessarily tell the billing suppliers about any work.

The billing operation is completely irrelevant.

Many of the utility companies don't have very good customer service record
and I wouldn't trust them to tell customers about planned work in a timely
manner.

Irrelevant to whether it is a useful service with the ones that do.

Sure, but it isnt feasible to expect everyone to have that sort of thing
setup for warnings about urgent maintenance to the power or water supply
etc.

As there is no such facility for power or water in the UK for the majority
of consumers

Wrong.

there is little point in discussing problems that don't exist.

The problem clearly does exist, otherwise Harry
wouldnt have asked about how to deal with it.