FCC Backs Down on Text-to-Speech Ban
The FCC rescinded a ban on text-to-speech emergency alert system warnings four days before new EAS rules take effect (CD March 23 p4). A new format of emergency alert system messages that all pay-TV providers and broadcasters must implement by June 30 couldn’t have included text-to-speech warnings, under a January order on equipment certification for the Common Alerting Protocol format. An order approved by commissioners Thursday -- nine days after circulating for a vote (http://xrl.us/bmxdnu) -- reversed that ban and left consideration of part of the issue for another day.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
The commission acted after a request from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which developed CAP and objected to the text-to-speech ban (CD March 14 p8) before the order appeared in the Federal Register. “A number of filings requesting similar action were made in this docket” (04-296) before the Federal Register notice, said Thursday’s order. “We do not treat these requests as petitions for reconsideration that are properly filed, but rather consider their merits on our own motion.” FEMA said not allowing government agencies such as the National Weather Service which are originating alerts to send them only with text and not also with audio could mean those alerts might not be disseminated. Text-only transmission keeps the file sizes smaller and may speed up passing on alerts by broadcasters and pay-TV providers, text-to-speech backers had said. FEMA had no comment Thursday.
The commission is no longer overriding a stakeholder implementation guide’s text-to-speech (TTS) specifications, the order said of the EAS-CAP Industry Implementation Guide. “We are deferring action on, rather than prohibiting, the use of the ECIG Implementation Guide’s TTS specifications,” the commission said (http://xrl.us/bm4id9). “We amend our EAS rules so that EAS Participants may, but are not required to, employ the text-to-speech functions described in the” guide, it said. The order noted that a report last month from the FCC Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council had raised the same concerns as FEMA. “We have also received filings from state and local emergency management agencies and others requesting a similar change to this rule,” the FCC said. Several states will use text-to-speech to send out CAP alerts.
The commission now sees a ban on TTS as possibly having “unintended negative consequences,” the order said. They include “compromising the ability of EAS Participants to receive EAS messages from states and local governments that have implemented CAP-based alerting systems that rely on TTS technologies,” it said. “Such a bar would depart from our original intention to maintain a more neutral stance on the best approach for establishing TTS requirements pending fuller consideration of the issues involved.” The merits for using TTS haven’t been “fully developed” in the record, the order noted. It deferred consideration of the guide’s TTS information.
"The FCC heard an impressive consensus on the need for text-to-speech conversion, from emergency managers, broadcasters, EAS equipment manufacturers and others,” said Senior Director Ed Czarnecki of one such maker, Monroe Electronics. “The commission should be recognized for its speedy resolution of this issue.” It’s in time for the Part 11 equipment certification rules for CAP EAS to take effect Monday, he noted.