The Federal Emergency Management Agency adopted a new digital message format for the Integrated Alert Public Warning System (IPAWS), the next-generation emergency alert and warning network. The new digital message format is the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards Common Alerting Protocol v1.2 Standard. The open standard will enable alert messages to be easily composed by emergency management officials for communication with citizens using a much broader set of devices, FEMA said. IPAWS’ purpose is to expand on the Emergency Alert System by allowing emergency management officials to reach as many people as possible over as many communications devices as possible, including radio, TV, mobile phones, personal computers and other communications devices. The current system relies largely on radio and TV.
In what the European Commission called a “first step” toward a unified defense against cybercrime, it proposed tougher laws against attacks on information systems and a more visible role for Europe’s network security agency. Cybercriminality isn’t just a game for young hackers anymore but an activity increasingly activity under the sway of organized crime, said Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström. Protecting critical infrastructure such as electricity grids is the long-term goal, but that won’t happen unless current legal loopholes are plugged, she said at a news briefing. Both proposals must be approved by the EU Council and Parliament.
Wireless carriers are taking steps to make their phones more usable by the blind, deaf-blind and persons with low vision without prescriptive regulatory mandates, CTIA said in comments filed at the FCC in response to a request for comments by the Consumer and Government Affairs Bureau. TIA, AT&T and Sprint Nextel also highlighted the progress of mobile operators in developing phones for customers with vision problems.
Broadcasters and cable operators have challenges “to successfully implement equipment in the timeframe suggested” by an FCC order on emergency alert systems (EAS) and common alerting protocol (CAP), a provider of gear to such companies said. “We urged the Commission to consider the need for CAP EAS devices to be type certified by the FCC, just as existing devices are currently,” said Monroe Electronics. An ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 04-186 and filed 11 days late recounted executives’ meeting with Public Safety Bureau officials.
Questions about what kinds of pay-TV distributors are entitled to use the FCC program access rules to seek carriage of vertically integrated-programming are better answered in a separate rulemaking, rather than in the context of a condition to approval of the Comcast-NBCU merger, Time Warner Cable argued in its reply comments in the merger review. Such a rulemaking could also answer questions about online distributors’ duties to provide closed-captioning and the emergency alert system, it said. “To the extent these issues need to be addressed, the full range of OTT [over-the-top] providers’ regulatory responsibilities should be considered in a proceeding of industry-wide scope, instead of adopting a standalone condition that would purport to give online entities rights under the program access rules,” it said.
Congress shouldn’t require mobile devices to include FM-radio chips, six manufacturers and wireless service providers said in a letter Monday to House and Senate Judiciary Committee leaders of both parties. CTIA, CEA, TechAmerica, the Telecommunications Industry Association, Rural Cellular Association and Information Technology Industry Council questioned the NAB’s and MusicFirst’s right to make the proposal in the groups’ performance royalty talks. The CEA and CTIA had objected to any legislation sought by radio broadcasters and music labels requiring chips in cellphones (CD Aug 16 p5).
Some college dorms have ditched landlines or are considering doing so as wireless devices become the popular platform for daily and emergency communications, school officials said in interviews. Some schools remain reluctant to do so on wireless capacity and other concerns.
The FCC should integrate planning for multilingual emergency alerts into state and local efforts and work closely with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and National Weather Service on long-term plans for origination of warnings in languages other than English, broadcasters said. FEMA is “on the verge of formally adopting” a common alert protocol that could be used for those purposes, said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 04-296 from the NAB. It reported on a conversation between Public Safety Bureau officials and representatives of NAB and the Florida Association of Broadcasters, which was involved in now-scuttled plans to test alerts where stations would broadcast warnings in the language of a non-English station when it went off-air. A proponent of that so-called designated hitter system last week urged the commission to mandate it (CD Aug 6 p11).
The FCC fined WWWK(FM) Islamorada, Fla., $8,500 for having neither working emergency alert system equipment nor a full-time staff at the main studio, said an Enforcement Bureau forfeiture order released Wednesday.
An FCC request for comment on whether to expand outage reporting requirements to VoIP and broadband and if so how generated little enthusiasm from telecom and Internet companies and groups. Providers from Vonage to the major wireless carriers said in comments late Monday that mandatory requirements would impose unnecessary burdens on the industry. Current outage reporting obligations apply to voice and/or paging communications over wireline, wireless, cable and satellite communications services.