Proposed FCC Changes to Wireless Alerts Could Strain Networks, Carriers Tell FCC
Wireless companies and CTIA are counseling the FCC not to change wireless emergency alerts (WEA) rules in a way that could mean more network congestion. The FCC proposed at its November meeting to allow longer WEA messages, inclusion of hyperlinks and narrower distribution of alerts (see 1511190053).
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.
CTIA said it's OK with some of the proposed changes, but the FCC should move with care to keep carriers onboard with the voluntary program. Public safety groups started to weigh in to support the changes in December, a month before the Wednesday deadline for filing comments in docket 15-91 (see 1512150054).
Verizon said expanding the size of alerts to a maximum of 360 characters is “technically feasible” for an LTE network, as is transmitting Spanish-language alerts. But a proposal to allow embedded URLs, phone numbers and multimedia in alerts could pose problems, Verizon said. “They will leave less room for emergency-related directions, and will encourage consumers’ use of data and voice services during emergencies when consumers are encouraged to minimize mobile handset use to avoid network congestion,” Verizon said. “Including mapping data or photos would similarly exceed the capabilities of current LTE networks and devices.” Any changes should be based on industry consensus, the carrier said.
CTIA said any compliance deadlines should account for the need to develop new standards if rules change. “Imposing a multitude of unnecessary additional mandates -- including expanding content (by embedding telephone numbers and links to URLs, and adding multimedia) and requiring logging and reporting, multiple languages, and priority access -- risks straying from the highly effective system in place today,” CTIA said. “This, in turn, would jeopardize wireless providers’ significant participation in this voluntary system.”
The WEA is working well and the FCC should refrain from imposing changes other than on the length of messages, Sprint commented. “The Commission should refrain from allowing embedded Uniform Resource Locators or other multimedia content to be included in WEA messages,” Sprint said. “Allowing URLs to be included will cause significant congestion on wireless networks and will also introduce security issues.”
The proposal to add content to alerts is well intentioned, T-Mobile said, but “contrary to the goal of better informing the public and improving public safety, adding these types of content would create significant network performance issues and inhibit the ability of a message recipient to contact authorities as appropriate.” Wireless networks already face congestion when emergencies occur, T-Mobile said: WEA messages encouraging recipients to access wireless networks for additional multimedia content would only add to the problem.
But other commenters were more generally supportive of the WEA changes. The City of Los Angeles Emergency Management Department said the changes proposed by the FCC, for the most part, would improve the WEA program.
NAB and NPR said in a joint filing adding a URL to an alert, which drives users to the Internet, “will only exacerbate the congestion of wireless networks that already plagues mobile communications and impedes public safety during times of crisis.” Instead, the issues raised point to the benefits of “free, over-the-air FM radio and support industry efforts toward increasing the number of mobile devices with activated FM chips,” they said.