The government is using the results of two emergency alert system tests in Alaska (CD Feb 3 p5) and the “lessons learned” from them to complete a plan for the first ever nationwide exercise of EAS, an FCC official wrote on the agency’s blog Friday afternoon. Some have said that testing the current EAS standard may bear limited fruit because it won’t test a new standard from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “Why bother testing the current EAS when the Federal government is moving to next generation alerting systems such as the Integrated Public Alerts and Warning System,” wrote Deputy Chief Lisa Fowlkes of the Public Safety Bureau. “The current EAS is designed to work when other methods of disseminating emergency alerts are unavailable” and FEMA has said “the current EAS will play a primary role in IPAWS for the foreseeable future,” she wrote. The purpose of the exercise isn’t to play “'gotcha’ with broadcasters or other EAS Participants,” which include DBS providers, satellite radio, cable operators and telco-TV providers, Fowlkes wrote: It’s to “determine what is working in the EAS and what is not and to work together” to make any needed improvements.
A forthcoming U.S.-wide check of the emergency alert system will help point out ways to make technical and operational improvements before switching to a new government standard for EAS, broadcast officials involved with such tests said in interviews Friday. Thursday afternoon, the FCC released an order (CD Feb 4 p10) requiring annual nationwide tests, which won’t immediately use the new standard, the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP). It was finalized late last year by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Not using CAP for the first test, which FCC officials have said could occur in late 2011, has benefits and drawbacks, state broadcast officials said.
The FCC said it unanimously adopted an order creating rules to set up national emergency alert system (EAS) test, as expected (CD Feb 2 p3). The national test, whose timing hasn’t been set, will require EAS participants to receive and transmit a live code that includes a presidential alert message, the commission said. The test will help the FCC, Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Weather Service judge the current EAS system and identify improvements needed “particularly as broadband technologies continue to emerge,” the FCC said.
Alaska’s second statewide test of its emergency alert systems through radio and TV stations and cable operators last week -- following one a year ago that had major problems -- was a success, participants told us. The lessons from those tests, and exercises across other states, may help prepare broadcasters, cable operators, government officials and others for a nationwide emergency alert test, industry officials said. The national test could come late this year (CD Feb 2 p3), under draft FCC rules that some commissioners have already approved, agency officials said.
Broadcasters would be among those required to run nationwide tests of the emergency alert system (EAS) in conjunction with federal agencies and other programmers, under a draft FCC order that commissioners may vote on soon, commission and industry officials said Tuesday. The Public Safety Bureau circulated an item on EAS Jan. 20, the FCC website said. That’s a draft order to require nationwide tests to be done annually, perhaps starting this year, commission and industry officials said. The order would turn into rules the proposals in a January 2010 rulemaking notice (CD Jan 15/10 p5), FCC officials said.
The FCC proposed to fine WWRR(FM) Scranton, Pa., $10,000 for failing to install emergency alert system equipment required by the commission, said an Enforcement Bureau notice of apparent liability.
A forthcoming FCC rulemaking notice on emergency alert systems (EAS) ought to account for the readiness of “various states and territories” to implement the new Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) standard, the Maine and Texas broadcaster associations said last week. The commission may soon issue a notice on EAS gear certification (CD Nov 19 p5), although agency officials said this week that none was yet circulating. “The Commission is urged to expressly invite the Governors of each state and territory, and their emergency management authorities, to inform the FCC of their respective time tables for updating their state EAS plans and for modifying their own communications networks and facilities,” the associations said in a filing in docket 04-296. “With a full and comprehensive record before the Commission, all interested parties will be better able to evaluate the best ways forward to facilitate the transition to CAP while protecting and preserving the safety of viewers and listeners."
The FCC should consider the security, confirmation and assurance and delivery system compatibility of the common alerting protocol for the emergency alert system before implementing the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s recommended CAP EAS rules, said a petition to the FCC filed by the Independent Emergency Alert System Stakeholders. The group is made up of officials from the state emergency communications committees of Nevada, Washington and California and the publisher of the Broadcasters Desktop Resource. They said views in the petition don’t necessarily reflect the views of those organizations. The petition highlighted 14 areas, many of them raised earlier in the docket by other parties, that the FCC should consider further before requiring broadcasters and cable systems be able to receive CAP v1.2 Standard formatted EAS messages. “If these considerations are not made part of the FCC certification of all new EAS equipment, it may be at best difficult and costly -- or at worst impossible -- to make necessary changes once equipment is delivered and installed,” the petition said.
Broadcasters and cable operators got an additional six months from the FCC to comply with new emergency alert system (EAS) standards from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as had been expected (CD Nov 19 p5). The new deadline to implement Common Alerting Protocol is Sept. 30, said a Public Safety Bureau order approved by the commissioners. “It is critical that we get this right from the beginning,” said bureau Chief Jamie Barnett. “After weighing considerable public input calling for an extension, we believe today’s action to do so provides broadcasters and other EAS participants with greater flexibility to meet the technical requirements for delivering next generation emergency alerts to the public.” Groups representing cable operators and commercial and nonprofit broadcasters had petitioned for the postponement.
A rulemaking notice on emergency alert system (EAS) gear certification, in the wake of a new standard from the federal government on protocol for transmitting such warnings, should be ready to circulate by year’s end, a career FCC official working on the draft said Thursday. The notice on applying Part 11 rules to radio and TV station and cable operator gear using the new Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) from the Federal Emergency Management Agency is being wrapped up now, Chief Tom Beers of the Public Safety Bureau’s Policy Division told an FCBA brown bag lunch. Also there, the FEMA official overseeing the integrated public alert and warning system said that agency hopes to have a nationwide EAS test, possibly in the next two years, something an NAB representative in the audience said broadcasters likely would support.