WEA Updates Expected to Get FCC OK
Emergency management agencies are backing FCC-proposed changes to emergency alerts. And we're told next week's vote on the draft order and Further NPRM (see 2105260076) should be noncontroversial.
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The Federal Emergency Management Agency emailed it "applauds [FCC efforts] to improve" wireless emergency alerts and the emergency alert system. "The changes being considered and supported by FEMA will undoubtedly make alert and warning more effective, reduce confusion, and broaden the use of alerting capabilities to inform people of threats to their safety," it said. Benjamin Krakauer, executive adviser to the New York City Emergency Management (NYCEM) commissioner, told us prohibiting opting out of FEMA administrator WEAs is a significant change that will improve alerting.
Combining WEA "Presidential Alerts" with FEMA administrator alerts into a new "National Alerts" class seems like a relatively minor change that won't affect device behavior with which the public is familiar, emailed Avi Primo, Celltick mass alert business unit head. Research shows people tend to follow instructional guidance more from authorities and alerting systems they trust, noted Hamilton Bean, visiting professor at Kyoto University's Disaster Prevention Research Institute. With the president "simply not a trusted authority" for many Americans, removing the association with instructional guidance in an emergency is logical, he emailed.
The draft order follows last year's Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act directing the FCC to change rules barring the FEMA alert opt-outs and allowing EAS alerts from the president and FEMA administrator to be repeated. The draft NPRM seeks comment on a variety of FEMA recommendations, including input on the costs and feasibility of an EAS update to support persistent display of alert information.
Krakauer said Congress didn't go far enough and shouldn't let people opt out of local alerts. Local emergency management agencies "need the same level of unfettered access" since they're closest to events, he said. He said next on the FCC's to-do list should be allowing the imbedding of multimedia such as photos or maps in emergency messaging. "We're still in 20th century alerting as far as WEA goes," he said. Krakauer said WEA could be improved with delivery confirmation and two-directional messaging to crowd-source information such as power outages and other disaster damage. That "would revolutionize how we do initial damage assessments," he said.
Congress directed the FCC to consult with FEMA on the rulemaking, but "simply deferring" to FEMA doesn't constitute consultation, NYCEM said in a docket 15-91 posting Wednesday. It urged the FCC to require commercial mobile service providers report false alerts to the commission.