The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions weighed in strongly against requiring wireless carriers to transmit wireless emergency alerts as part of an early warning system for earthquakes and tsunamis. The wireless industry in general argued that WEAs couldn’t be used for warnings when the FCC sought comment (see 1605100054). ATIS reported on a call between members of its Wireless Technologies and Systems Committee and Public Safety and International bureau staff. “It is unaware of any earthquake or tsunami alerts over WEA and ... there are no standards defined to support this approach,” ATIS said in a filing in docket 16-32. “WEA should not be used to transmit earthquake or tsunami alerts.”
A nationwide test of the emergency alert system planned for Sept. 28 is expected to show that problems revealed by the 2011 test have been addressed, said broadcast, EAS and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials in interviews Monday. The FCC Public Safety Bureau and FEMA announced the test in a public notice Monday. Planning for it has been going on for years, officials told us.
County officials will investigate a two-hour 911 outage in Montgomery County, Maryland, the county said in a news release Monday. From 11:10 p.m. Sunday to 1:09 a.m. the next morning, callers received a busy signal. During the outage, fire and rescue units responded to two medical emergency calls involving fatalities -- a 91-year-old woman from Olney and a 40-year-old man from Twinbrook, the county said. The outage also affected dispatch console radios, but staff quickly switched to backup radios, it said. The county said it notified the public through public safety social media and the county emergency alert system. The outage occurred at the Alternate Emergency Communications Center in Rockville, which was activated three-and-a-half weeks ago while the county made hardware changes at the main center in Gaithersburg. County Executive Ike Leggett said he wants "a thorough evaluation of the systems that support 911 to make sure that the systems have the stability to withstand whatever power surges or blips that could cascade into even a partial system outage. County residents must be able to count on a prompt response to emergencies.” The county said it already ruled out an external power loss or failure of backup generators: “It is believed that it initially occurred due to an internal equipment failure of a cooling (air conditioning) system in the IT room of the AECC which then shut down the 911 system to prevent overheating.”
Many FCC proposals for improving the emergency alert system would be unduly burdensome, said the American Cable Association, Dish Network, NAB and NCTA in replies in docket 15-91. Also Monday, the FCC approved 4-1 new EAS codes for storm surges and high winds, an item originally slated for the commission's June meeting (see 1606240072). Pay-TV entities and broadcasters said proposed EAS security measures would be overly onerous and should be left up to EAS participants. They disagreed about proposals to change rules that allow cable carriers to “force-tune” viewers to a central channel displaying EAS information.
Overshadowed by a Tesla blog post Thursday disclosing a fatal accident involving a Tesla Model S in autopilot mode, BMW, Intel and Mobileye announced plans Friday to bring autonomous vehicles to streets by 2021. In a joint presentation in Munich, the three companies said they together will develop systems for “highly and fully automated driving to bring these technologies into series production” in five years.
The EAS Test Reporting System is “operational” and ready to accept filings, the FCC Public Safety Bureau said in a public notice Monday. Emergency alert system participants have to complete Form One of ETRS by Aug. 26 and update or correct their submission by Sept. 26, the PN said. It sought comment on recommendations by the agency's Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council to update the EAS Operating Handbook with “checkboxes and 'fill-in-the-blank' operational steps." Comments on the EAS handbook will be due 15 days after the PN is published in the Federal Register.
The FCC should give an additional six months, until Jan. 31, before it requires cable systems to be capable of retransmitting a national periodic test (NPT) event code, NCTA said in a petition for a limited waiver in docket 04-296 Monday. The agency's 2015 emergency alert system order specified the NPT event code as the test code for national EAS testing and said that by July 30 all EAS equipment must be capable of immediately retransmitting the NPT event code (see 1506040056). "This turned out to be a more daunting challenge than the industry anticipated or the Commission envisioned," NCTA said, pointing to remaining challenges of modifying IP infrastructure for delivering EAS alerts, upgrading legacy program guide systems and modifying legacy encoders and decoders. NCTA said cable operators plan to use the extra six months for finishing software and firmware testing and for purchasing and installation of new equipment.
An FCC draft order on creating new emergency alert system codes was withdrawn from the commissioner meeting agenda Friday morning. An agency spokesman told us it’s expected to be adopted “soon.” Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said he hadn't voted on the item when it was unexpectedly pulled because of its “horrible” cost-benefit analysis. The item, which would create specific EAS codes for high winds and storm surges, wasn't expected to be controversial (see 1606220063).
An FCC advisory committee voted unanimously in favor of reports on an updated emergency alert system handbook and enhanced coordination for submarine cables, at a meeting Wednesday of the Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC). The FCC meanwhile is to vote next month on an EAS order (see 1606220063).
A draft order that would allow broadcasters to use three new emergency alert system codes to communicate specific storm threats is expected to be unanimously approved by the FCC Friday, said industry and agency officials in interviews this week. The EAS item is seen as uncontroversial, and though some broadcasters may not possess equipment capable of transmitting the new codes, their use is expected to be voluntary, industry officials told us. Historically, the use of new EAS codes has been up to broadcasters, said Monroe Electronics Senior Director-Strategy and Government Affairs Ed Czarnecki.