Public safety issues rarely dominate the agenda of any FCC chairmen, as in 2004 when one of the biggest focuses of then-Chairman Michael Powell was the 800 MHz rebanding, aimed at protecting safety users from interference. Four years later, then-Chairman Kevin Martin pushed through a failed plan to reallocate the 700 MHz D block for public safety. The main contender, Frontline, dropped its pursuit of the band, which went unsold at auction but now is part of FirstNet. Every chairman since has focused on a few public safety issues.
Public safety issues rarely dominate the agenda of any FCC chairmen, as in 2004 when one of the biggest focuses of then-Chairman Michael Powell was the 800 MHz rebanding, aimed at protecting safety users from interference. Four years later, then-Chairman Kevin Martin pushed through a failed plan to reallocate the 700 MHz D block for public safety. The main contender, Frontline, dropped its pursuit of the band, which went unsold at auction but now is part of FirstNet. Every chairman since has focused on a few public safety issues.
This Special Report on Emergency Communications details the challenges of modernizing systems like 911, and other hurdles to further improving public safety. The six articles by Communications Daily journalists are the result of months of research, interviews, document reviews and public-records requests.
This Special Report on Emergency Communications details the challenges of modernizing systems like 911, and other hurdles to further improving public safety. The six articles by Communications Daily journalists are the result of months of research, interviews, document reviews and public-records requests.
LAS VEGAS -- There are “great things going on at ATSC,” besides 3.0 “implementation stuff,” but Mark Richer plans no role once he retires as president in mid-May, he told us at the NAB Show. “My little toe will be available to be put in the water if ATSC needs my advice or counsel,” but “I’m really, truly retiring,” he said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency will integrate HD Radio’s emergency alerts feature into its Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) test and demonstration center in Maryland, said parent company Xperi Monday. For the first time, FEMA will be able to test the emergency alert system using commercial HD Radio receivers, said Ashruf El-Dinary, Xperi vice president-radio technology solutions. The HD Radio emergency alerts feature provides visual and auditory notifications to consumers, and the digital radio features allow broadcasters to expand public service information in communities, Xperi said. HD Radio receivers with the emergency alerts feature are available in select vehicles, and aftermarket and tabletop radios, in the U.S. and Canada. The emergency alert feature will be demonstrated at the NAB Show in the FEMA/IPAWS booth, Central Hall stand C3330.
October’s nationwide emergency alerting test was mostly a success, though there were glitches, the FCC Public Safety Bureau reported Monday. The early read on the test was that most cellphones got the test wireless emergency alert and most broadcasters transmitted emergency alert system messages (see 1810030051), albeit with plenty of problems. The test was the first nationwide for WEAs. The report includes recommendation for making both wireless and broadcast alerts more effective, including a WEA database.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency will use next week’s NAB Show to demo HD Radio’s emergency alerting functionality for the agency’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), emailed a representative for HD Radio parent Xperi. The demos will be at FEMA’s IPAWS booth in the Las Vegas Convention Center’s Central Hall, he said. Xperi also will demo HD Radio at its North Hall booth and will participate with NAB Pilot showcasing digital AM technology in the Future’s Park pavilion on the main show floor, he said. More than 320 HD Radio stations in 85 U.S. markets in January transmitted “emergency alert text notifications” to HD Radio receivers, said an Xperi white paper. HD Radio can enhance emergency alerting with many “advanced features and attributes,” including the ability to wake up receivers in sleep mode, “to provide greater resiliency, redundancy, and accessibility in the nation’s public alerting ecosystem,” it said.
The Advanced Warning and Response Network Alliance will demo at next month's NAB Show a new user experience and uses for AWARN emergency alerts using the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard, alliance Executive Director John Lawson told FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and an aide. To improve over prototypes, Lawson told Pai the group met public safety officials from cities including New York and did usability testing, recounted a filing posted Tuesday in docket 16-142. It said 3.0 could be used for connected vehicles, and there are "potential synergies between AWARN and Wireless Emergency Alerts." The standard could be used for "localized emergency alerts for streaming media," said the alliance. An alert mock-up Lawson emailed us shows a black box taking up the middle third of a TV screen, with warning text and a button on the bottom to get "more info" and another to "dismiss" the message. He told us changes from earlier versions include "a simple banner in the middle of the screen vs filling the whole page" and viewers have two choices instead of more options. AWARN could put legacy emergency alert system warning screen crawls in the top third of a TV screen and the lower third is for “'Breaking News' graphics," Lawson added. "Clicking 'more information' leads to multimedia graphics like evacuation routes and shelter locations."
No “project” is underway at ATSC to “specifically add” 8K resolution or the next-generation Versatile Video Coding (VVC) codec (see 1903140012) to A/341, the video standards document for ATSC 3.0, Madeleine Noland, LG Electronics senior adviser-technology and standards, told a SMPTE webinar Thursday. A/341 specifies 3.0 resolutions up to 4K using the High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) codec.