As companies such as Edgewater Wireless continue to invest and develop the infrastructure for wireless Internet in the region, the federal government of Mexico City is now offering residents a Blackberry App that will alert them when it is likely that an earthquake will hit the area.

Though it only provides recipients with a lead time of 5-10 seconds, even this small increment of time can save lives under certain circumstances. Such forewarning could provide recipients the time they need in order to find a safe place for cover. In the future, the city will install sirens that will go off in order to alert residents to immanent seismic activity.

Earthquakes represent a serious problem in Mexico City. Recently, a quake registering at 7.4 on the Richter Scale destroyed several hundred homes in the area. USA Today reported that the earthquake and its aftershocks killed two people. In 1985, Mexico City sustained an earthquake with a death toll of somewhere between 10,000 and 40,000 people, according to conflicting estimations. In the tragedy's wake, the World Bank provided the city with a loan for $400,000,000 toward reparations.

Seismologists at Caltech developed an interest variation on the same system. Rather than issuing warning signals to recipients, professor Robert Claymont’s system actually uses mobile phones to receive and relay critical information regarding seismic activity to central locations. In turn, this information is then sent elsewhere from this central location for both emergency warning purposes in addition to being recorded for future study.

A similar program called The Quake Catcher Network runs out of Stanford University. As their website explains, even a matter of seconds can give people enough time to get off of a dangerous elevator. Such warnings can also save money and vulnerable data, allowing people time to disconnect sensitive electronics and other susceptible systems.