Some college dorms have ditched landlines or are considering doing so as wireless devices become the popular platform for daily and emergency communications, school officials said in interviews. Some schools remain reluctant to do so on wireless capacity and other concerns.

The FCC should integrate planning for multilingual emergency alerts into state and local efforts and work closely with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and National Weather Service on long-term plans for origination of warnings in languages other than English, broadcasters said. FEMA is “on the verge of formally adopting” a common alert protocol that could be used for those purposes, said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 04-296 from the NAB. It reported on a conversation between Public Safety Bureau officials and representatives of NAB and the Florida Association of Broadcasters, which was involved in now-scuttled plans to test alerts where stations would broadcast warnings in the language of a non-English station when it went off-air. A proponent of that so-called designated hitter system last week urged the commission to mandate it (CD Aug 6 p11).

The FCC fined WWWK(FM) Islamorada, Fla., $8,500 for having neither working emergency alert system equipment nor a full-time staff at the main studio, said an Enforcement Bureau forfeiture order released Wednesday.

An FCC request for comment on whether to expand outage reporting requirements to VoIP and broadband and if so how generated little enthusiasm from telecom and Internet companies and groups. Providers from Vonage to the major wireless carriers said in comments late Monday that mandatory requirements would impose unnecessary burdens on the industry. Current outage reporting obligations apply to voice and/or paging communications over wireline, wireless, cable and satellite communications services.

A government standard for emergency alerts could be working by Q1 of 2011, since the Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to finalize the Common Alerting Protocol this quarter (CD May 19 p5), FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker said Monday. But “clearly, probably, likely, there will be extensions,” she said at the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council conference. It has been several years, “a long time,” since the council and others sought implementation of a multilingual emergency alert system, so “I understand your frustration” about the slow progress, Baker said. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said she’s “excited” for the FCC to work with FEMA on alerts in languages other than English. Commissioner Robert McDowell said he would “be delighted to tee up in a further notice the question of what can we do with multilingual alerts."

U.S. telecom companies’ internal disaster and emergency response operations, preparedness and timely response are critical in recovery efforts in Haiti, companies said on a roundtable at the Department of State Friday. The Haiti earthquake, a major test for emergency response capabilities, underlined the need for better coordination, they said.

Public safety and emergency experts emphasized the need for more clarity, accuracy and relevance in emergency alert procedures and systems, they said at the FCC and Federal Emergency Management Agency’s 21st Century emergency alerting workshop Thursday, citing lessons learned from an emergency alert system test in Alaska in January. The FCC should extend the deadline for installing updated Emergency Alert System (EAS) gear and the federal government should fund more training to use it, some said.

The FCC is already getting its first comments on the future of the 1675-1710 MHz band, which could in part be used for mobile broadband under a proposal being examined by the FCC and NTIA. The Office of Engineering and Technology sought comment last week, with a due date of June 28 (CD June 7 p6). ProAlert.us, which supplies weather alerts to customers from emergency managers to first responders, expressed “serious” concerns. “ProAlert.us makes use of the Emergency Managers Weather Information Network (EMWIN), a system of satellites and uplinks that provide vital weather related information” the company said in a filing. “This information is used widely within Federal, State and local entities as a means to help protect the citizens of this country.” Colorado State University’s Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere also advised the FCC to proceed with care. “Public use of this frequency range presents a potential conflict to this multi-million dollar infrastructure,” the institute said. “CIRA alone has well over two million dollars invested in its Earthstation, including two decades of customized software development.” The Harris County Appraisal District asked the FCC to protect the Emergency Weather Information Network system it operates serving southeast Texas. “The investment in the Houston EMWIN system is significant, and interference from other users of the spectrum on or around 1692.7 MHz would render the Houston EMWIN system inoperable, thus depriving one of America’s largest metropolitan areas of a proven and valuable emergency weather warning and information service.” So far, five parties have filed comments.

The FCC should limit broadcasters’ reporting duties in proposed testing rules (CD May 19 p5) for the national emergency alert system (EAS), an owner of radio stations said in a filing Tuesday in docket 04-296. “While EMF understands the need for nationwide testing of the EAS system, it does not support the Commission’s proposed reporting requirements” because thousands of broadcasters would “deluge” the FCC with reports of successful tests, said the owner, the Educational Media Foundation. The commission should “limit the scope of the reporting requirement to a small ’sampling’ of stations, and it should provide for electronic filing of data,” the foundation said. “Current logging requirements are sufficient.”

The FCC Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau and the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Continuity Programs updated the agenda http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-298651A1.pdf for a workshop on 21st Century Emergency Alerting: Leveraging Multiple Technologies to Bring Alerts and Warnings to the Public, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday at the FCC. The event will deal with the status of the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, including the Next Generation Emergency Alert System (EAS) and the Commercial Mobile Alert System. The public meeting also will allow the agencies and their federal partners to gather feedback on issues related to these systems, the upcoming National EAS test and the FCC’s coming proceeding on next-generation alerting.