ARLINGTON, Virginia (CNN) -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency conducted a test Wednesday of crisis alert technology that could one day allow urgent messages to be sent to cell phones and computers nationwide.

A FEMA test message relayed through a public television satellite appeared on select cell phones, with text messages telling people to tune in to televisions and radios. The alert also went out to computers, with information appearing in the form of a red scrolling banner and a new window with a video announcement from a Department of Homeland Security official. (Watch a FEMA demonstration of the new alert system -- 2:03)

"It's time for us to move this whole system into the 21st century," said FEMA Director David Paulison. "It's going to be quicker, more efficient and more reliable information that will not only reach our general public, but also our first responders and our government organizations across the country."

The general public shouldn't expect emergency text messages from the government any time soon, however. Though the technology has made it through a one-year pilot phase, putting it into effect will require Congress to pass new legislation, and for a maze of Federal Communications Commission laws to be debated and negotiated by private-sector media distributors.

"The barriers are not really technical," said John Lawson, head of the Association of Public Television Stations. "It's a question of funding, it's a question of private-sector partners figuring out how to do it and agreeing to do it."

The federal government has spent $1 million so far on developing the new system. FEMA expects to spend $4.5 million more to complete its set-up, and $1 million a year to maintain it thereafter.

For the time being, FEMA's sights are set on being able to use the new Digital Emergency Alert System to communicate with emergency operation centers in hurricane-vulnerable Gulf and Atlantic coast states by the end of this year. By the end of 2007, FEMA says, it plans to have the system deployed in all 50 states.

With weaknesses exposed by such events as the September 11, 2001, attacks and Hurricane Katrina, the existing system has been criticized as an outdated Cold War relic. On June 26, President Bush issued an executive order requiring DHS to upgrade the nation's emergency alert system, to "ensure that under all conditions the president can communicate with the American people," including in cases of terrorist attack, war, natural disaster or other public danger."