FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal for changing the $1.7 billion USF Lifeline program to cover Internet access could face some resistance from FCC Republicans, industry officials told us Monday. An order and further rulemaking on Lifeline are teed up for a vote at the FCC’s June 18 meeting (see 1505280037). Wheeler proposed an examination of a cap on the program as part of the proposal circulated last week to commissioners. The Senate Communications Subcommittee plans a hearing on Lifeline Tuesday (see 1506010050) The Lifeline item is lengthy and various commissioner offices were still taking a closer look as of Monday, FCC officials said.
A significant uptick in false emergency system alerts in the past five years has resulted in a growing number of FCC EAS penalties in amounts that previously appeared only in indecency cases, said broadcast lawyer Scott Flick in a post Tuesday on Pillsbury Winthrop's blog. That day’s $1 million settlement by iHeartCommunications (see 1505190039) means the FCC has “taken five enforcement actions totaling nearly $2.5 million for misuse of EAS tones by broadcasters and cable networks” in the past six months, Flick said. While the financial penalty is noteworthy, the FCC also is attempting to eradicate copies of EAS tones before they can be used by future production staffs, he said. "Given the easy access to numerous recordings of EAS tones on the Internet, the FCC might be a bit optimistic that deleting the tone from a station’s production library will prevent a recurrence," Flick said. "It is perhaps an acknowledgement that most false EAS tone violations are the result of employees unaware of the FCC’s prohibition rather than a producer bent on violating the rule."
The House Homeland Security Committee cleared the State Wide Interoperable Communications Enhancement Act (HR-2206) and the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) Modernization Act (HR-1738) during a markup Wednesday. The bills now move to the House floor. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., won approval for an amendment to HR-2206 that “maintains the flexibility that states need” to implement this within each state’s organization “while maintaining the intent of the bill.” Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee Chairwoman Martha McSally, R-Ariz., successfully offered an amendment in the nature of a substitute for HR-1738, which the committee posted. The amendment includes language that would ensure that under all conditions the president can alert people of hazards and adds a sunset clause for the IPAWS advisory committee, which would include the FCC chairman, McSally said during the markup. The sunset date is six years after the committee's establishment. The bill is “nearly identical” to legislation approved last Congress, which did not advance into law, McSally added. She cited support from CTIA and NAB.
IHeartCommunications agreed to pay $1 million after admitting to misusing emergency alert system tones, and will follow a compliance and reporting plan, said an FCC news release Tuesday. IHeartCommunications must remove or delete all simulated or actual EAS tones from the company’s audio production libraries, the FCC said. Oct. 24, iHeart’s WSIX(FM) Nashville aired a false emergency alert during the broadcast of the nationally syndicated The Bobby Bones Show, the agency said. While commenting on an EAS test that aired during the 2014 World Series, Bobby Bones, the show’s host, broadcast an EAS tone from a recording of an earlier nationwide EAS test, the commission said. This false tone was sent to more than 70 affiliated stations airing the show and resulted in some of these stations retransmitting the tones, setting off a cascade of false EAS alerts on radio and TV stations in multiple states, it said. IHeartMedia did not immediately return a request for comment.
An FCC order on the agenda for next Thursday’s meeting is expected to require multichannel video programming distributors to pass through a secondary audio stream of emergency alerts which appear as an on-screen crawl on TV sets to tablets and smartphones streaming MVPD content through the companies' apps, said agency officials. It's "my hope and expectation that these new rules will enable individuals who are blind or visually impaired to more quickly respond to time-sensitive emergency situations,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in an April 30 blog post on the items.
Roughly a week before ATSC 3.0's framers unleash a full progress report on the next-gen DTV standard at their “Boot Camp” conference on Wednesday in Washington, ATSC Thursday said the “first ingredient” of ATSC 3.0's physical layer has reached the status of “candidate standard” following a month of balloting. The so-called “bootstrap signal” portion of the physical layer is designated “A/321 Part 1" and will be “important to the future evolution of ATSC 3.0,” ATSC said in an announcement. Other “core elements” of the physical layer, including its modulation and error correction systems, will be balloted for candidate status this summer, ATSC said. Balloting on each of ATSC 3.0's components typically will be a four-week process, ATSC has said. The bootstrap signal for ATSC 3.0 transmission will remain a candidate standard for nine months while prototype equipment is built and tested “in advance of balloting for the entire system,” ATSC said. “The bootstrap is a low-level signal that tells a receiver to decode and process wireless services multiplexed in a broadcast channel,” said ATSC President Mark Richer. “It’s designed to be a very robust signal and detectable even at low signal levels.” The bootstrap signal provides “a universal entry point into a broadcast waveform,” ATSC said. It uses a “fixed configuration” known to all receivers “and carries information to enable processing and decoding the wireless service associated with a detected bootstrap signal,” as well as a “flag” that indicates when an emergency alert is in effect, it said.
Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) on cellphones should be a “bell ringer” service that alerts users to seek more information about imminent threats, AT&T representatives said in a call with officials from the FCC Wireless Bureau. “WEA is not a purpose-built alert system … and as such policymakers should accept the limitations inherent in the cellular system,” AT&T said in a filing posted in docket 15-91. “The carrier obligations of WEA can only be met by the native broadcast capabilities defined in the standard.” Carriers can offer longer warning messages through LTE, but doing so will take time, AT&T said. “The updated message length for WEA messages will require new handsets and it will take time to standardize, deploy in the core network, modify the interface to [the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System], and get quantities of handsets out to wireless users.” AT&T said that a message length of 280 characters does “seem achievable.”
The Senate Homeland Security Committee cleared an amended version of the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System Modernization Act (S-1180) during a markup Wednesday. Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., introduced the bill earlier this week. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., a Homeland Security Committee member, is its one co-sponsor. Johnson posted a copy of the 17-page bill text on the committee website. The legislation, which would direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to revamp the integrated public alert and warning system, “will support our national security,” Johnson said in prepared remarks for his opening statement Wednesday, saying the bill “authorizes a ‘next generation’ system that enables the president to quickly alert the public during a national emergency.” McCaskill said “this legislation would result in more families and businesses across the country receiving lifesaving information quickly and effectively, and ensure our government has the flexibility it needs to evolve with future changes in technology,” in a statement, noting its backing from NAB. The legislation would create an Integrated Public Alert and Warning System Subcommittee that would include the FCC chairman. Two pieces of companion legislation, both with the same name but introduced by different committee lawmakers (HR-1738 and HR-1472), have been introduced in the House. The Broadcast Warning Working Group said the Senate legislation “will further modernize the public alert warning system of the United States to ensure that warnings about natural disasters, acts of terrorism and other disasters or threats are disseminated quickly and effectively.” The Warning, Alert and Response Network Act "that authorized creation of the Wireless Emergency Alert system harnessed the creativity of the wireless industry and leveraged ... the ubiquity of the mobile platform to augment the existing emergency alerting system," CTIA Vice President-Government Affairs Jot Carpenter said. "The program is working as Congress intended. CTIA is pleased that Senators Johnson and McCaskill recognize this success and seek to modernize IPAWS without conferring upon FEMA or DHS authority to regulate wireless carriers or altering a WEA system that is working effectively for Americans."
Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., introduced the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System Modernization Act (HR-1738) Monday. Bilirakis and then-Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, introduced legislation of the same name in the last Congress that never advanced. Bilirakis is a member of the Homeland Security Committee and the Communications Subcommittee. The legislation would “amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to modernize and implement the national integrated public alert and warning system to disseminate homeland security information and other information,” the latest bill text said. The system would be “designed to improve the ability of affected populations in remote areas and areas with underdeveloped telecommunications infrastructure to receive alerts,” it said. The legislation also would create the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System Advisory Committee, which would include the chairman of the FCC as a member. Bilirakis’ co-sponsors include Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, and Rep. Susan Brooks, R-Ind., who chaired the Homeland Security Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee last Congress. It has been referred to Homeland Security and the Transportation Committee. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., a member of the Transportation Committee, introduced legislation of the same name (HR-1472) on March 19, also referred to those two committees. Barletta’s co-sponsors include Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., ranking member Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., and Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., another Transportation member.
LAS VEGAS -- LG, GatesAir and Zenith are using the NAB Show this week to showcase how their year-old Futurecast physical layer proposal for ATSC 3.0 has been expanded to encompass a “complete, end-to-end sort of a system,” said Wayne Luplow, vice president at LG’s Zenith research and development Lab in Lincolnshire, Illinois, Monday in a media briefing at the GatesAir booth. “We’ve gone beyond where we’ve been before,” Luplow said.