The National Weather Service asked the FCC to require inclusion of multimedia content in wireless emergency alerts, joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which made a similar request last week (see 1805240035). FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is coming under increasing pressure to address multimedia content, but wireless and public safety officials said Pai doesn't appear to have decided how to proceed. Comments were due last week on a Public Safety Bureau notice to update the record (see 1803280029) on the feasibility of carriers including multimedia content in WEAs.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency and Harris County, Texas, said the FCC should mandate that carriers be able to transmit multimedia content in wireless emergency alerts. Comments are due Tuesday on a Public Safety Bureau notice seeking to update the record (see 1803280029) on feasibility of carriers including multimedia content in WEAs, and early filings are starting to appear in docket 15-91. “We must continue to look at ways to improve the WEA system to create a strong and adaptable tool,” Harris County said. “Pictures provide instant recognition and speak a universal language. Most importantly, they enable rapid response from every potential witness who could save countless lives through fast action. With the network upgrades to 5G, capacity for multimedia messages will be even greater, and we would be remiss not to advocate for multimedia capabilities for WEA to be in place as this upgrade occurs.” FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System Office also backed the change in alerting rules. It's already “technically feasible” to include multimedia in alerts and the cost would be minimal to public safety, FEMA said. “Forthcoming improvements to provide targeted messaging, increase character count, provide a Spanish-language function, and test the system will increase WEA’s utility to local authorities,” said the Regional Disaster Preparedness Organization serving the Portland, Oregon, area. “However, additional multimedia enhancements are still needed to ensure emergency warnings are correctly understood by the public -- specifically the ability to send an image in a WEA message and provide alerts in languages other than English and Spanish.”
The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and the Public Safety Bureau scheduled a June 21 webinar on wireless emergency alerts and the emergency alert system, said a public notice Wednesday. The webinar will focus on how the systems work, “who is eligible to initiate alerts, and the targeting of messages to particular geographic areas,” the PN said. “The webinar will help ensure state and local governments are ready and able to utilize these alerting systems when they are needed” and allow participants to ask questions of staff, the PN said.
Supporting a Minnesota wireless emergency alert (WEA) test planned June 18, the FCC Public Safety Bureau granted a limited waiver allowing participation by emergency alert system (EAS) entities and commercial mobile service providers. The test is a combined live EAS and end-to-end WEA test and will run 6:30-7 p.m. CDT, with a backup date of June 19, the bureau said in a Friday order. The proposed test "will help ensure that [Minnesota's] personnel is sufficiently well trained in how to use the EAS and WEA so that they can initiate an actual alert effectively when necessary." Testing EAS and WEA together "is a likely reflection of what would occur in an actual emergency," it said. The bureau conditioned the waiver on the state providing sufficient outreach so the test doesn't confuse emergency personnel or the public.
Wireless emergency alerting has a ways to go, especially after the false missile alert that created panic in Hawaii in January (see 1801160054 and 1803160042), Chairman Ajit Pai said at an FCC panel Tuesday. “There's a lot of potential in the system, some of which consumers have come to realize,” Pai said. “We do have some improvements to make.” He expressed hope the lesson learned would inform other future changes to alerting systems. Others agreed there's a ways to go.
Cities need multimedia messages to make the wireless emergency alert system “a strong and adaptable tool,” said Houston Public Safety and Homeland Security Director George Buenik in a letter to FCC commissioners posted Monday in docket 15-91. After Hurricane Harvey, Houston couldn’t use WEA multimedia messaging to issue evacuation notices, Buenik said. “We could have better targeted those in the evacuation area and delivered precise instructions to those who needed the information the most.” Pictures can be more direct than text alone, and also would improve accessibility to the deaf and hard of hearing, he said.
House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chairman Leonard Lance, R-N.J., filed his Preventing Illegal Radio Abuse Through Enforcement (Pirate) Act Tuesday, drawing praise from FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly and the New Jersey Broadcasters Association. The bill, which Lance circulated in draft form earlier this year, would increase fines for illegal pirate operations from $10,000 per violation to $100,000 per day per violation, up to a maximum of $2 million. It would streamline FCC enforcement to empower state and local law enforcement agencies' to undertake anti-pirate operations (see 1803150055 and 1803210035). House Communications examined the then-draft measure during a March hearing (see 1803220055). “This bill rightfully increases the penalties, requires regular enforcement sweeps, and augments the tools available to the Commission, which are woefully inadequate and outdated, to deal with illegal pirate broadcasters,” O'Rielly said. “The bill notably excludes legitimate Part 15 operations, otherwise known as radio hobbyists. ... I think the PIRATE Act has a great chance of becoming law.” NJBA asked "Congress to direct the FCC to increase its pirate enforcement budget and activities and to offer legislation and devote the resources necessary to eliminating the pirate radio problem" in New Jersey and New York City during a visit to Capitol Hill, said President Paul Rotella. “Most people do not understand the very real danger pirate radio operators put the public in through their illegal transmissions. These pirate radio stations cause interference to” the emergency alert system and “FAA frequencies that could interfere with airline communications and also create excessive, unmeasured RF radiation to residents and businesses in the buildings they operate in, which may present significant health concerns.”
The FCC designated the license of KLSX(FM), Rozet, Wyoming, for hearing over a record of “extended periods of silence,” said a hearing designation order (HDO) released Monday. KLSX went silent after one day of operation just after its license was issued to Family Voice Communications in 2010 and “has remained primarily silent since then,” the order said. The hearing designation order had been set for Thursday's commissioners' meeting. The agency released an agenda deletion notice a few hours after the release of the order Monday. The station has operated just a few days a year for the bulk of its existence, a total of 396 operational days out of eight years, the order said. The vast majority of that total is recent -- the station has had a string of 254 operational days since August, the order said. That operational stretch begins just after the FCC designated another station’s license for hearing over extended silences (see 1708160032). The proceeding against KLSX will be a “paper hearing” because the FCC hasn’t found any credibility issues with the facts of the proceeding, the order said. The hearing won’t involve discovery, but the agency requested copies from Family Voice of program logs and emergency alert system records. The company has 30 days after the HDO is published in the Federal Register to provide those records, and 60 days to file a response, the order said. KLSX didn’t comment.
The FCC Public Safety Bureau is acting to increase the use of the Integrated Public Alert Warning System (IPAWS) to propagate emergency alert system warnings, rather than the legacy “daisychain” system, said the bureau’s report on the 2017 Nationwide EAS test, released Friday. The internet-based CAP (common alerting protocol) alerts sent through IPAWS contain more information, have better audio and allow multi-language alerts, the report said. The test shows EAS participants have “improved in their ability to successfully alert the public,” the report said, though it also shows a drop from 2016 in test participation, and a Federal Emergency Management Agency report on the nationwide test released last week questioned the accuracy of the results reporting.
Officials from Puerto Rico, Texas and the U.S. Coast Guard said last year’s massive storms showed the fault lines in the communications infrastructure. Information supplied by the FCC sometimes didn’t keep up with the disasters as they unfolded, speakers said during an FCC workshop Friday. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said the FCC wants to learn from what happened last year. Puerto Rico is struggling to recover from Maria, which hit it in September (see 1803160051).