Old and new methods of distributing emergency alert system warnings need improvement, said a new GAO report. It recommended the FCC and Federal Emergency Management Agency work to get an Internet-based EAS message system rolled out by states. “Weaknesses” in the traditional broadcast-based method of distributing warnings from government agencies to radio listeners, TV viewers and multichannel video programming distributor customers persist after a GAO report found problems in 2009, said the study. It said the FCC and FEMA have taken limited steps to improve traditional EAS after a first-of-its-kind nationwide test of the system in 2011.

LAS VEGAS -- Some 30 emergency alerts were sent to wireless subscribers in Oklahoma Monday as tornadoes struck the state, killing at least 24 people, industry officials said during a CTIA public safety panel Tuesday. Another 17 emergency alerts went out on Sunday as the storm began. However, CTIA Assistant Vice President Brian Josef said that consumer expectations for the level of warnings they'll get on their cellphones are on the rise.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System allows localities to reach those a normal EAS alert wouldn’t by triggering multiple alert systems, officials said during a FEMA webinar Wednesday on how localities can plan for, test and use the IPAWS system. The system allows officials to send out warnings using the Emergency Alert System, Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs) and other public alerting systems from a single interface. IPAWS Program Manager Manny Centeno said that because IPAWS alerts across multiple systems, it can be used to reach people beyond those a standard EAS alert would reach. He used the example of WEAs, which send short text alerts to mobile devices. “WEA can wake people up with their phone,” he said. Centeno pointed out that though the short WEA messages don’t convey much information, they can be used to get people’s attention, so that they will go check for other information that might be provided by EAS or another system through IPAWS. Centeno also said it’s important for localities new to the system to test it extensively, through tabletop exercises and other methods. “We certainly don’t want to go out there and press the big red button before we know how to press the big red button,” he said. The seminar included a presentation on the Joint Interoperability Test Command, a federal organization affiliated with the Department of Defense that helps FEMA test alert systems like IPAWS without accidentally triggering a real response. Because IPAWS involves so many different systems working together, JITC’s work is especially important, said Centeno. “Knowing that the message I put into the system is going to be properly represented elsewhere in the system -- that’s interoperability hand-in-glove.”

Dish General Counsel Stanton Dodge will appeal to lawmakers Tuesday for retransmission consent reform and characterize broadcaster opposition to Dish’s DVR Hopper service as anti-consumer. His written testimony circulated among lobbyists ahead of the Senate Communications Subcommittee’s second “state of” communications hearings under Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., scheduled for 10:30 a.m. in 253 Russell. The hearing comes as lawmakers prepare for the December 2014 expiration of Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) and the arrival of a new FCC chairman. Dodge and Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney John Begmayer will tell lawmakers that the outdated rules that govern the video market are hurting consumer choice and the public interest. Meanwhile, representatives from NAB and NCTA plan to say the video marketplace is working well and there’s little need for regulatory change, according to their prepared testimony.

The FCC needs to address the gap in multilingual emergency communications systems, the Minority Media and Telecom Council said in a letter to the chief of the Public Safety Bureau Thursday (http://bit.ly/15ORQA0). MMTC said it first asked the FCC to address the issue in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which struck in 2005. MMTC President David Honig said current FCC emergency communication procedures “cannot ensure that multilingual emergency warnings will reach those without access to mobile phones or other non-broadcast devices, since an emergency may silence a market’s only multilingual station.” Honig said the EAS test report released last month (CD April 16 p5) was focused only on English speakers. “This omission could prove deadly for non-English speaking U.S. residents,” Honig said. He said FCC efforts to provide emergency alerts for non-English speakers should include detailed information beyond simple alerts, including directions on where to find shelter and food and when it might be safe to return. “Before the 2013 hurricane season begins, the Commission should take up and rule on the Katrina Petition,” Honig said.

The comparatively low cost of mobile DTV will give terrestrial broadcasters a “significant advantage” over streaming TV services like Aereo, stakeholders said Thursday at the Advanced TV Systems Committee annual meeting. Representatives from mobile DTV providers Dyle and Mobile 500 Alliance said mobile TV technology’s comparatively low cost and reliable coverage was one of several advantages that would keep broadcasters competitive with wireless carriers.

The FCC is asking the states to review and update their Emergency Alert System plans to make sure they comply with the agency’s rules, said a public notice from the commission’s Public Safety Bureau Thursday (http://bit.ly/ZYhmhc). The notice to the State Emergency Communication Committees (SECCs) is in response to one of the recommendations that came out of a report on the FCC and Federal Emergency Management Agency’s first-ever nationwide EAS test in 2011 (CD April 16 p5). The new notice said all state EAS plans must be up to date, filed with the FCC, and must include a “computer readable” data table showing monitoring assignments and “the specific primary and backup path” for emergency messages, “from the Primary Entry Point (PEP) to each station in the plan.” The agency also requires states that can initiate messages using the Common Alerting Protocol to include monitoring and distribution specifics for those messages in their EAS plans. In a separate order Thursday (http://bit.ly/163m81q), the bureau also allowed 15 stations that had previously filed requests for waivers of the commission’s CAP requirements to withdraw them. “These fifteen petitioners all state that they are now either in compliance with [the CAP requirement] or are no longer in operation,” said the order.

The FCC denied an application for review and found Ely Radio liable for an $11,000 fine for violations concerning an antenna structure in Winnemucca, Nev. As former owner of antenna structure number 1005854, Ely Radio in Minnesota failed to ensure the structure “exhibited the required obstruction lighting” and failed to make sure its registration with the commission was appropriately updated “to reflect a change in ownership,” the commission said in an order (http://bit.ly/15XWxGN). The Enforcement Bureau reasonably determined that Ely was the antenna structure owner and, therefore, “was responsible for the violations at issue here,” it said. The commission also affirmed the Enforcement Bureau’s decision to deny Mt. Rushmore Broadcasting’s petition for reconsideration of a $17,500 forfeiture. Mt. Rushmore, of Casper, Wyo., failed to ensure the operational readiness of the emergency alert system equipment for two of its radio stations, didn’t maintain a complete public inspection file for those stations and failed to operate an aural studio-transmitter-link from its licensed location, the FCC said in an order (http://bit.ly/14lQiww).

"All of Comcast’s cable systems are now CAP compliant,” because they have the “broadband connectivity” needed to get common alerting protocol announcements, it told the FCC in updating a waiver petition. The company was among operators that asked for waivers of a June 30, 2012, deadline for being able to receive emergency alert system warnings in that newer format (CD Sept 11 p1) that uses the Internet and not the broadcast daisy-chain to send out alerts. In June, “a handful of its smallest, most remote cable systems” lacked “the broadband connectivity necessary to monitor for CAP alerts,” and so a waiver was sought, the company said in a filing to the Public Safety Bureau (http://bit.ly/17jGeAc). After seeking an extension to Feb. 28, 2013, Comcast became compliant with the emergency warning rules “with a satellite-based delivery solution through EMnet” and completed that in February, said the filing Monday in docket 04-296.

There were failures among many types of emergency alert system participants and at many levels in the so-called daisy chain distributing EAS warnings, the FCC said sixteen months after the first nationwide simulation. There’s a “Need for Additional Rulemakings” and other steps by the commission and Federal Emergency Management Agency before another test is held, said one subsection heading of the Public Safety Bureau report. The study sought a “re-examination” of FCC state EAS plan rules, with some plans not providing enough details about alert propagation, said the report. EAS stakeholders we spoke with said they generally backed its recommendations and found it a useful document even so long after the Nov. 9, 2011, test. Members of Congress were among those who had scrutinized the results and sought such an autopsy (CD Nov 18/11 p1).