Cell broadcast message are the messages that your mobile service provider sends you based on your current geographic location as determined by the cell towers of that service provider. The mobile service provider an send you messages related to weather, location, local news, emergency alerts, advertisements, offers and so on. In the beginning the cell broadcast service was mostly useful, but these days the service providers are using it to advertise various things to the customers. If you have been receiving such messages on your Android smartphone, then you can disable the cell broadcast messages and get rid of these annoyances in a fraction of a second.
Here is how you can turn off cell broadcast messages in Android:
- On the home screen of your Android device, touch the messaging icon displayed near the lower edge of the screen. This is usually used for viewing the SMS text messages that you receive on your phone.
- On the messaging screen, touch the menu button (three vertical dots) to open the messaging menu. From this menu you have to select Settings to open the settings related to the messaging app.
- On the Settings screen, it will display different categories of settings that you can configure, e.g., notifications, text messages, multimedia messages and so on. You have to select General settings from the list displayed.
- On the General settings screen, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and select SIM card cell broadcast settings under the Cell broadcast category.
- On the next screen, you may have to choose a SIM card if your smartphone supports two or more SIM cards. If your phone supports only one SIM card, then you will be taken to the Cell broadcast setting page for that SIM card. You can touch Disable cell broadcast to turn off the cell broadcast messages coming from that SIM card. The text will now become Enable cell broadcast indicating that cell broadcast messages have been turned off.
Conclusion: Cell broadcast messages can be real annoying and are sent multiple times in one minute. Some of these messages are useful, but in general they are all advertisements of one kind or another. Fortunately, Android has made it very easy to turn off the cell broadcast messages in your smartphone.