The FCC should push off at least six months a March 29 deadline by which companies must be able to receive Common Alerting Protocol emergency alert system warnings, associations including the NCTA, American Cable Association, Society of Broadcast Engineers, Association for Maximum Service Television, NPR, Association of Public Television Stations, PBS, NAB and 46 state broadcast associations said in a petition. The commission should at least hold the deadline in abeyance until it completes its own CAP-related equipment certification process and finishes a pending rulemaking on changes to Part 11 of its rules to reflect CAP implementation per the Communications Security Reliability and Interoperability Council’s recommendation, the petition said. While deadlines often are needed to spur desired conduct, new uncertainties have come up related to CAP and EAS since the commission adopted the March 29 deadline, the petition said. “EAS participants still lack basic, needed information as to whether the FCC will institute its own CAP-compliance certification process, how long such a process will take and how long it will take the commission to complete its CAP-related rulemaking.” FCC and industry officials expect the agency to extend the deadline after getting a request for a delay (CD Oct 5 p1).

The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions said it completed a standard enabling Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) broadcasts over LTE networks. “LTE is well-positioned to play a pivotal role in the communications ecosystem, particularly in the area of emergency communications,” ATIS said. “To address this reality, this recently developed standard -- when fully implemented -- will allow LTE-enabled devices to receive CMAS alerts during emergencies or natural disasters."

Sending emergency alerts to devices equipped with FM receivers and Alert FM software is an effective way to distribute emergency alerts, the service’s provider Global Security Systems said citing a federally funded study conducted by Northrop Grumman. The study monitored how the Alert FM system performed on a college campus, in a multi-county region and a larger area, using the Common Alerting Protocol requirements, GSS said. The Alert FM software takes data embedded in the FM signal using Radio Broadcast Data Service to deliver up to a 240-character text message to electronic devices equipped with the software and receiver.

The FCC appears likely to extend an emergency alerting deadline for cable systems and radio and TV stations to start using a newly released warning standard made public last week by FEMA (CD Oct 1 p12) after several delays of its own, commission and industry officials predicted. Under current FCC rules, broadcasters and cable operators must certify compliance with Common Alerting Protocol 180 days after the standard was released by the Federal Emergency Management Agency last Thursday. The regulator seems poised to delay that deadline, perhaps for several months and either for all who would be subject to CAP compliance or for those licensees who say they can’t meet the deadline, FCC and industry officials said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency adopted a new digital message format for the Integrated Alert Public Warning System (IPAWS), the next-generation emergency alert and warning network. The new digital message format is the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards Common Alerting Protocol v1.2 Standard. The open standard will enable alert messages to be easily composed by emergency management officials for communication with citizens using a much broader set of devices, FEMA said. IPAWS’ purpose is to expand on the Emergency Alert System by allowing emergency management officials to reach as many people as possible over as many communications devices as possible, including radio, TV, mobile phones, personal computers and other communications devices. The current system relies largely on radio and TV.

In what the European Commission called a “first step” toward a unified defense against cybercrime, it proposed tougher laws against attacks on information systems and a more visible role for Europe’s network security agency. Cybercriminality isn’t just a game for young hackers anymore but an activity increasingly activity under the sway of organized crime, said Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström. Protecting critical infrastructure such as electricity grids is the long-term goal, but that won’t happen unless current legal loopholes are plugged, she said at a news briefing. Both proposals must be approved by the EU Council and Parliament.

Wireless carriers are taking steps to make their phones more usable by the blind, deaf-blind and persons with low vision without prescriptive regulatory mandates, CTIA said in comments filed at the FCC in response to a request for comments by the Consumer and Government Affairs Bureau. TIA, AT&T and Sprint Nextel also highlighted the progress of mobile operators in developing phones for customers with vision problems.

Broadcasters and cable operators have challenges “to successfully implement equipment in the timeframe suggested” by an FCC order on emergency alert systems (EAS) and common alerting protocol (CAP), a provider of gear to such companies said. “We urged the Commission to consider the need for CAP EAS devices to be type certified by the FCC, just as existing devices are currently,” said Monroe Electronics. An ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 04-186 and filed 11 days late recounted executives’ meeting with Public Safety Bureau officials.

Questions about what kinds of pay-TV distributors are entitled to use the FCC program access rules to seek carriage of vertically integrated-programming are better answered in a separate rulemaking, rather than in the context of a condition to approval of the Comcast-NBCU merger, Time Warner Cable argued in its reply comments in the merger review. Such a rulemaking could also answer questions about online distributors’ duties to provide closed-captioning and the emergency alert system, it said. “To the extent these issues need to be addressed, the full range of OTT [over-the-top] providers’ regulatory responsibilities should be considered in a proceeding of industry-wide scope, instead of adopting a standalone condition that would purport to give online entities rights under the program access rules,” it said.

Congress shouldn’t require mobile devices to include FM-radio chips, six manufacturers and wireless service providers said in a letter Monday to House and Senate Judiciary Committee leaders of both parties. CTIA, CEA, TechAmerica, the Telecommunications Industry Association, Rural Cellular Association and Information Technology Industry Council questioned the NAB’s and MusicFirst’s right to make the proposal in the groups’ performance royalty talks. The CEA and CTIA had objected to any legislation sought by radio broadcasters and music labels requiring chips in cellphones (CD Aug 16 p5).