The FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) wrapped up its work Monday, approving a report recommending a blue ribbon panel to consider how to pay for upgrading 911. CSRIC also approved a report making 397 recommendations for cybersecurity best practices.
Notice of an FCC order requiring nationwide testing of the emergency alert system and mandating that EAS participants provide the regulator with data on such tests was published in Tuesday’s Federal Register. No additional details on the test were revealed.
Travelers information stations (TIS) broadcasting limited information to drivers should get the FCC permission they seek for a “narrow expansion” of rules so they can provide more types of emergency information, the NAB said in replies in docket 09-19. Other commenters in the docket also supported expanding TIS, some further than what NAB suggested. Highway Information Systems and the American Associations of State Highway and Transportation Officials had asked the Public Safety Bureau to amend TIS rules, which the bureau sought comment on.
The New Jersey Broadcasters Association supported creating a congressional caucus on emergency alert systems. In its weekly newsletter, the association said Friday the caucus would “bring emergency messaging and security conscious law makers together to introduce and pass legislation that fortifies our nation’s EAS; immediately activate and/or put FM chips in all cell phones and handheld devices; increase the number of PEP stations for true nationwide coverage, and generally support and strengthen our emergency communications broadcast capabilities and network around the United States.” Primary entry point stations help disseminate EAS messages.
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.