The FCC Public Safety Bureau denied several requests...
The FCC Public Safety Bureau denied several requests for waivers of its requirement that Emergency Alert System participants be able to receive Common Area Protocol (CAP) messages, the commission said in a public notice Monday (http://bit.ly/15z062m). Southern Communications Volunteers, Applegate…
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Media, New Wave, Lakeview Cable, RB3, and Reach Broadband had requested waivers of the commission’s June 30, 2012 deadline for EAS participants to “have installed operational equipment that can receive and process EAS alerts” in CAP, and all have been denied, the PN said. SCV, New Wave, Lakeview, Reach, and Applegate all said they could not meet the deadline because of “vendor delay” preventing them from getting the needed equipment, the PN said. However, the Public Safety Bureau denied their waivers because their waiver requests “show that they chose to wait until very close to the deadline to order equipment, and thus any delay in receiving equipment was entirely attributable to each company’s business decisions,” the PN said. The Bureau also said by failing to order the equipment on time, the companies had let the public down. “The Commission implemented the June 30 deadline for CAP compliance in order to ensure that ‘Next Generation EAS’ would be transmitted in an efficient, rapid, and secure manner over a variety of formats” said the PN. “We find that the lack of due diligence shown by the Petitioners to obtain the required equipment in a timely fashion is inconsistent with the public interest.” However, New Wave and several of the other companies have additional CAP waiver requests before the FCC that cite other waiver justifications -- such as a lack of broadband internet access -- and this order does not affect those petitions, the PN said. “We're reviewing the order,” said Cinnamon Mueller attorney Scott Friedman, who represents New Wave, Reach Broadband and Lakeview Cable.