The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) server and its backup were down for more than 24 hours over the weekend, according industry executives and several messages to an Emergency Alert System (EAS) listserv discussion group. Broadcasters’ EAS equipment connects to the IPAWS servers for Common Alerting Protocol alerts (CAP) through the Internet. Saturday morning, station EAS equipment began sending out messages that they could not communicate with the server, and the problem was not resolved until about 2:30 p.m. ET Sunday, said Richard Rudman, a core member of the Broadcast Warning Working Group.

Progress in the rollout by two broadcaster technology coalitions of mobile DTV, now commercially available to about half of Americans, was cited by senior House Communications Subcommittee members of both parties. Speaking at a Capitol Hill mobile DTV and mobile emergency alert system (M-EAS) demo Thursday, they said those new technologies’ use of spectrum already allocated to broadcasters helps meet increasing consumer demand for streaming video. Lawmakers recognized consumption of mobile DTV -- TV stations sending live shows to portable devices and as of this summer one model of Samsung cellphone on MetroPCS (CD Aug 10 p10) -- doesn’t use wireless spectrum or incur data consumption charges to cellphone subscribers.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to update its list of Internet Protocol integrated public alert and warning system (IPAWS) developers (http://xrl.us/bnqhe6) to reflect uncertainty about whether vendors have completed successful tests of the system, a FEMA official said Wednesday on an agency webinar with developers. Currently, the list indicates which vendors have successfully posted a digitally signed IPAWS alert in the test environment FEMA’s set up for the open platform for emergency networks (OPEN) IP system. Because the list was initiated before FEMA began using unique digital certificates for Collaborative Operating Groups (COGs), FEMA can’t confirm whether any individual vendor has actually successfully tested the system, said Neil Graves, a technical requirements manager with FEMA’s IPAWS-OPEN.

The post-derecho 911 outages in northern Virginia were “very serious” and bordered on “catastrophic,” the Virginia State Corporation Commission wrote in an interim report Friday (http://xrl.us/bnpspc). The SCC, along with the FCC and other entities, have been investigating the outages since they occurred over a few days starting June 29.

Government agencies don’t distribute emergency alert system warnings to radio listeners and viewers of over-the-air and pay TV only via the Internet, state and federal originators of EAS alerts and industry executives said. During Hurricane Isaac, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s new Web-based EAS distribution system wasn’t used by agencies serving the Gulf Coast that responded to our survey. Instead, the traditional method of distributing storm and disaster alerts by broadcasting them to all radio and TV stations and multichannel video programming distributors in a region was used late last month, as it continues to be.

Clarification: Kenai Broadcasting’s emergency alert system waiver wasn’t denied by the FCC as the company said (CD Sept 11 p1), and the agency asked for more information about the EAS request, a commission spokeswoman said. She said the agency sought comment on the American Cable Association’s EAS petition, withdrawn by the ACA because the merits of the request weren’t acted on in time for an EAS deadline.

Capitol Broadcasting’s WRAL-TV Raleigh, N.C., will demonstrate a mobile Emergency Alert System using the ATSC mobile DTV standard. Watch the demo here Thursday at 6 p.m. EDT: http://www.wral.com/11477194.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau has pressed for emergency alert system rule compliance after getting waiver requests in past months from rural cable operators and TV stations, some of those seeking exemptions told us. The requests claimed insufficient broadband availability prevented them from upgrading EAS for a new format that requires Internet connectivity (CD July 2 p9) by a June 30 deadline. One radio station’s waiver request was denied, while the bureau wanted more details about others’ efforts to acquire broadband service before ruling on waivers, industry officials said. They said some inquiries inspired EAS participants to find innovative ways to connect rural stations and cable headends to broadband.

Texas Association of Broadcasters President Ann Arnold, 67, died Saturday. She had leukemia. During her 25-year tenure at TAB, she became an expert on the emergency alert system, and in 2005 was president of the National Alliance of State Broadcast Associations. Arnold was the first female press secretary to a Texas governor, Mark White (D), in the 1980’s and before that was a newspaper and wire service reporter. Two sons and a sister survive.

The FCC Homeland Security Bureau said it is working with stakeholders to address concerns with the agency’s Emergency Alert System rules. The revelation came in a letter sent to Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., (http://xrl.us/bnnwcn). Bureau Chief David Turetsky acknowledged that broadcasters have raised significant objections to the FCC’s mandatory override/force tuning practices and in response the commission will revisit the issue, he said in the letter published this week. “While I cannot predict the outcome of this review, I can assure you that the commission remains committed to ensuring the public has access to timely and accurate public safety information across all information and media platforms,” Turetsky wrote.