Techniques are discussed herein for efficiently providing wireless emergency alerts (WEA) to a mobile device. The techniques include broadcasting a warning message from a base station in a wireless network within a cell for the base station and including an interior cell or exterior cell indication and a geographic area description for an external cell. A receiving mobile device may then display the warning message to a user either unconditionally when an interior cell is indicated or after verifying the mobile device is located within the geographic area for an exterior cell. The wireless network may determine interior versus exterior cell status by determining interior cells to be wholly within the geographic area and exterior cells to be partly within the geographic area.