FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is promising more precise geo-targeting of wireless emergency alerts, with a WEA proposal he said circulated Monday to be included on the Jan. 30 meeting agenda. Pai said Monday that wireless carriers in the WEA program delivering better geo-targeted alerts would encourage more use of the alerts during emergencies and lead to the public taking such alerts more seriously. The agenda is expected to be released Tuesday. CTIA, in a statement in response to Pai's announcement, said it backed the chairman's efforts to enhance the WEA system’s geo-targeting capabilities through device-based solutions, and the agency "should adopt new rules that are technically feasible along an achievable timeline.” Separately, in a docket 15-91 ex parte filing posted Monday, CTIA recapped meetings with aides to Pai and other commissioners at which it said device-based geo-targeting will take at least 36 months to implement after the effective date of new FCC rules. It said the kind of "fundamental shift" in WEA capabilities that such geo-targeting requires incudes new mobile wireless network and device standards, and the agency needs to adopt "a reasonable timeline" for achievement. It said testing new WEA enhancements with a prototype device using device-based geo-targeting methods could happen by the end of 2019. In a separate filing posted Monday, the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions Wireless Technologies and Systems Committee listed 15 standards that would need to be modified or developed for device-based geo-targeting. It said such standards work would take 12-18 months. And the Federal Emergency Management Agency said for geo-targeting alert messages, it saw little need for coordinate precision beyond the fourth decimal point of degree, which works out to about 11 meters or 36 feet. The agency said this doesn't conflict with efforts to have WEA-driven device-based geo-targeting with a one-tenth mile accuracy.
The Blue Alerts report and order -- creating a dedicated emergency alert system code to be used on a voluntary basis for law enforcement officers in danger -- was released Friday. It was approved 4-1 at Thursday's FCC members' meeting (see 1712140045).
Representatives of the ATIS Wireless Technologies and Systems Committee said they briefed staff from the FCC Public Safety Bureau on technical questions on wireless emergency alerts. Among topics was geo-targeting, said a filing in docket 15-91. “Device-based geo-targeting would require fundamental changes to existing cell broadcast technology," the filing said. “The determination of whether and how device-based geo-targeting could be accommodated in existing handsets will be examined by the industry, although ATIS noted that it is likely that some legacy devices will not be able to support the changes via a software upgrade.” Microsoft also reported on a meeting with bureau staff. The bureau "sought input on the impact that different means of transmitting geo‐coordinates in conjunction with emergency alert text to mobile devices would be likely to have on mobile device performance," the company said. "Microsoft offered to explore those questions and will provide a substantive response at a later date."
All commissioners spoke in support of the FCC’s order creating a dedicated Blue Alert code, but Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel was a lone partial dissent, voicing objection to the cost-benefit analysis. That analysis “puts a price on the death of first responders and then nets it out against industry expenses,” Rosenworcel said. “There is a way to do cost-benefit analysis thoughtfully and with dignity for those who wear the shield,” she said. “This isn’t it.” With Rosenworcel’s partial dissent, the order was approved 4-1, as some expected (see 1712130055).
Industry officials expect a unanimous FCC vote Thursday to approve a draft item that would create a new emergency alert system code for law enforcement officers in danger, but they left open the possibility one of the agency’s Democrats could vote against it. Those inside and outside the FCC told us the relatively noncontroversial Blue Alert item isn’t their main focus at a commissioners' meeting that also will feature votes on net neutrality (see 1712130053) and the national broadcast coverage ownership cap (see 1712060051). The draft order hasn’t been the target of many suggested edits and has changed little since being released, an FCC official said.
A higher percentage of emergency alert system participants received the alert signal during the 2017 national EAS test (see 1709270071) than in 2016, but more than 1,000 fewer EAS participants sent their receipt and transmission results to the agency afterward, and more TV stations didn't get the alert and so didn't pass it on, said initial results Thursday from the FCC Public Safety Bureau. “Performance appears to have improved over what we observed in the 2016 nationwide EAS test,” said a public notice. This year, 95.8 percent of test participants successfully received the simulation, vs. 95.4 percent. But 19,069 broadcasters provided information afterward, compared to 20,389. More participants received the alert through the Integrated Public Alert Warning System in 2017, 59.3 percent v. 43.5 percent. Only participants that received the alert through IPAWS were able to send out Spanish-language alerts, and 207 test participants did so in 2017, up from 75 in 2016. The results could change with further analysis, the PN said. “Together with [the Federal Emergency Management Agency], the Bureau will continue to analyze the results of the 2017 nationwide EAS test and release more detailed findings when available.”
A paragraph in the FCC’s draft Blue Alerts order set for the December agenda gives the nod to a change in the way emergency alerts are handled that could have effects beyond the order's creation of a single BLU emergency alert system (EAS) code for law enforcement officers in danger. “We encourage EAS manufacturers and EAS Participants to take technical steps to facilitate the delivery of IPAWS [Integrated Public Alert Warning System]-based EAS Blue Alerts to the public where an alert is first delivered to an EAS Participant via broadcast,” the draft order said, giving EAS participants permission to favor the internet-based, more-information rich common alerting protocol (CAP) alerts over the more simple alerts transmitted by the legacy “daisy-chain” system.
An FCC draft ruling and orders would undo 2015 net neutrality regulation and Title II broadband classification under the Communications Act, as Chairman Ajit Pai and staffers outlined Tuesday (see 1711210020). The 210-page draft declaratory ruling, report and order, and order released Wednesday would "reverse heavy-handed utility-style" broadband regulation "and return to the light-touch framework" that promoted a "free and open internet" before Title II classification, it said.
The Advanced Warning and Response Network (AWARN) Alliance sees the FCC vote authorizing voluntary deployments of ATSC 3.0 (see 1711160060) as laying "the ground work for major improvements in America’s emergency alerting system,” said Executive Director John Lawson. Recent disasters “provide more depressing examples that our current alerting systems are not adequate,” he said. Using 3.0, the alliance and “public safety partners will begin the technical development” of AWARN next year, he said. But Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld blasted FCC Chairman Ajit Pai for the vote, calling it an “action that primarily benefits Sinclair Broadcasting at the expense of consumers.” With Sinclair having “boasted” about the audio measurement tools it will develop and patent royalties it will collect from the next-gen standard, the order “does nothing to protect consumer privacy or protect consumers from the extra costs" of the transition, said Feld. Though NCTA was active in docket 16-142 with filings urging 3.0 not impose costs and burdens on cable companies and their customers, the group declined comment Friday on 3.0's approval.
An item now listed as being on circulation concerns streamlining and improving the process for filing state emergency alert system plans, an FCC spokesman said. The draft on circulation is listed only as a Public Safety Bureau item “On the Matter of Amendment of Part 11 of the Commission's Rules Regarding the Emergency Alert System.” There has also been recent activity under that heading in docket 15-94 concerning Blue Alerts (see 1706220045), the proposed addition of an EAS code to warn of law enforcement officers in danger. Bureau staff queried Sage Alerting (see 1711140024) and AT&T about possible timelines for implementing the alerts. The bureau didn’t comment.