California’s government will do a pilot this year with Sprint Nextel of a system to send emergency warnings and alerts to mobile phones within range of particular cell towers, said Matthew Bettenhausen, secretary of the state’s Emergency Management Agency. The idea is to reach out-of-town visitors and others on the move, he said Friday. “That technology is out there but has not been implemented,” Bettenhausen said at Carnegie Mellon University’s Disaster Management Initiative Workshop in Silicon Valley. Emergency-notification systems that use telecom remain oriented toward landlines, he said. For incoming calls, “we have spent a lot of money making 911 ubiquitous, and I don’t think we should change that,” Bettenhausen said. The system’s being able to accept text messages would offer benefits, especially to people with disabilities, he said. But texts may not reach dispatchers as quickly as voice calls.

The Department of Homeland Security approved the Joint ATIS/TIA Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) Federal Alert Gateway to CMSP Gateway Interface Specification as a national standard, said the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions and the Telecommunications Industry Association. When fully adopted by communications service providers, the specification will provide anyone with a CMAS-capable mobile device an additional way to receive alerts during natural disasters and other emergencies. The specification will benefit end users by allowing widespread use of 90 character text message emergency alerts and warnings of imminent threats to life and property, Amber Alerts and presidential emergency messages, they said.

Broadcasters and cable operators supported a national annual emergency alert system test, in comments to the FCC last week. The national test should only be once a year, a group of state broadcast associations said. In the month the national test occurs, system participants shouldn’t have to also perform a regional test, NCTA said.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau introduced a Web page called “Broadband and Public Safety and Homeland Security,” http://www.fcc.gov/pshs/broadband.html, about the commission’s efforts to carry out National Broadband Plan recommendations on behalf of emergency agencies. “The implementation of the plan will include initiatives to bring interoperable communications to America’s first responders through the creation of a nationwide wireless broadband network and new cyber security reporting and monitoring programs; as well as Next Generation 9-1-1 services; emergency alerts and warnings through a variety of outlets (including via television and radio broadcasts (Emergency Alert System), wireless hand-held devices, (such as cell phones and the Internet) and much more,” the bureau said. “The web page includes access to the latest press releases, public notices, field hearings, and presentations.”

Gray TV’s Q4 sales fell 18 percent from a year earlier to $77.5 million, the company said as it released unaudited results for the quarter. Most of the decline came from selling political spots. It sold $22.4 million fewer of those than it had a year earlier. Gray’s credit rating is still limited by its strict debt covenants and the trouble it will have complying with them, Moody’s said. The share price fell 9.9 percent.

The FCC should consider how TV providers would handle customer service, digital rights, management agreements, closed captioning, parental controls and emergency alert system messages if security and navigation were divided between two set-top boxes, EchoStar told Chief William Lake of the FCC Media Bureau and aides. The company also discussed challenges in encouraging video-device innovation through the National Broadband Plan, said an ex parte filing.

The FCC should consider how TV providers would handle customer service, digital rights, management agreements, closed captioning, parental controls and emergency alert system messages if security and navigation were divided between two set-top boxes, EchoStar told Chief William Lake of the FCC Media Bureau and aides. The company also discussed challenges in encouraging video-device innovation through the National Broadband Plan, said an ex parte filing.

A proposed Emergency Response Interoperability Center (ERIC) would be housed at the FCC in the Public Safety Bureau and would come under a Public Safety Advisory Board, according to a concept paper posted on the FCC website. Meanwhile, public safety groups and companies that serve them said they liked what they heard at Thursday’s FCC meeting about public safety recommendations coming in the National Broadband Plan -- especially a recommendation on the need for a next-generation 911 network.

The NAB generally supports national emergency alert system testing, as the FCC proposed Thursday (CD Jan 14 p5), a spokesman said Friday: “We look forward to working with the Commission in working through issues that will arise in the coordination process.”

The FCC proposed amending emergency alert system rules to require national testing and data collection. In its latest rulemaking notice, issued Thursday, the commission sought comment on whether the proposed change would “effectively ensure accurate EAS testing at the national level.” Currently, FCC Part 11 rules provide for periodic national EAS testing, but mandates only state and local testing. No U.S. president has ever issued a national alert, and it’s never been tested, the agency said. EAS testing was one issue raised last year in the Public Safety Bureau’s 30- day review.