EAS Participants Support National Location Code, While Some Urge Changes To Reporting System in EAS Rules

NAB supports the FCC’s proposals on header code elements in EAS alerts and a collaborative process to develop flexible standards for enhancing the accessibility of EAS text crawls, it said (http://bit.ly/1sJLAUO). This approach should involve representatives from the disabled community, EAS participants, FCC and others “that could fully vet all the relevant technical and policy issues concerning EAS text crawls, and develop a consensus, reasonable approach to enhancing the accessibility of EAS,” it said. NAB also continued its support of adopting a national location code of six zeroes, using the existing national periodic test (NPT), and enhancing accessibility of EAS for disabled people, it said. The effort would be effective without cable overrides, NAB said. It makes little sense to adopt new standards for the speed, completeness and placement of EAS text crawls “when cable operators may simply override such crawls,” NAB said.

AT&T also supports a six-zero national location code and NPT, it said (http://bit.ly/VqX9C0). That support is premised on the FCC also adopting a requirement that the NPT be activated like any other EAS alert, rather than that the NPT fully emulate the emergency alert notification (EAN) “in all its characteristics,” it said. The costs and time frame required for implementation of a full EAN emulation can’t be justified at this time “compared to the potential benefit that may be derived,” it said.

Verizon supports proposals to use the ETRS and to improve the accessibility of the EAS message text crawl with some modifications, it said (http://bit.ly/1sJNvc8). The commission should propose that the text crawl be displayed continuously throughout the duration of any EAS message, rather than EAS “activation,” it said. The text crawl “is associated with the audio version of the EAS message, not the general EAS activation,” it said. Verizon also asked that the ETRS accommodate more than one report for each physical system ID assigned to video hub offices, which can span several communities, it said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency supports the proposed updates to the EAS test reporting system, and the establishment of a six-zero national location code, it said (http://bit.ly/1AkcR1g). The agency urged the commission to consider the costs necessary to implement the NPT code and costs associated with the public education campaign requirements “in advance of national EAS tests that incorporate the EAN event code,” it said. FEMA also pointed out the burden on bi-annual “live” code tests, requiring EAS participants to manually insert a graphic identifying the test. Although such testing may be necessary on a regular basis, bi-annual tests “would result in a significant financial burden to the industry,” it said.

Consumer groups representing the disabled community disagreed that the NPT should be used as an alternative to using an actual EAS programming code, they said in joint comments (http://bit.ly/1pidyEi). Many shortcomings of the original EAS nationwide test were accessibility-related “and we do not believe it is wise to programmatically bypass the full capability of the EAS system,” the filing said. The groups agreed that the captioning and the visual text crawl must run for the duration of the message. The groups also asked for the FCC to shorten its proposed six-month deadline for compliance with accessibility standards to no longer than three months.

NCTA urged a one-year implementation of the nationwide location code to make certain that it’s properly supported by the encoder/decoders in the headend, and in the downstream equipment in cable operators’ networks, it said (http://bit.ly/1t45zKS). Cable-delivered EAS messages generally don’t block important visual content and are legible, it said. Standardizing the appearance of EAS messages for speed and size “is unnecessary to address accessibility concerns and would lead to significant cost with little benefit,” it said. FCC rules should permit the option of consolidating test results from individual local cable systems within a company into one electronic report under the ETRS, it said.

Broadcast engineers asked that the FCC consider an annual test of the national EAS in coordination with FCC staff engineers and the broadcast technical community, said broadcast engineering consulting firm Cohen, Dippell (http://bit.ly/1qd9JwZ). The commission should be more accessible to the broadcast industry, and the FCC should consider establishing a procedure “whereby the broadcast industry can gain immediate access to the FCC staff,” it said. The Society of Broadcast Engineers urged the FCC to proceed in a way that keeps the cost to broadcasters to “an absolute minimum,” it said (http://bit.ly/1pxFZyp). NPT should be used for most nationwide tests, but it shouldn’t require that broadcasters “incur the cost of software and hardware upgrades that would be necessary in order for the NPT to emulate the EAN’s priority, duration and termination qualities,” it said. Retransmitting an EAN alert immediately upon receipt is the only possible method to transmit alerts uniformly and consistently, it said. NPT should be treated in a like manner, it said.