Hold those Voice Link comments until September, said the New York State Public Service Commission (http://bit.ly/13htb6I). The PSC had requested comments on Verizon’s fixed wireless service, intended as a sole offering to replace basic service landlines on Fire Island, by Tuesday but delayed the deadline to Sept. 13. It changed the date “to allow customers and other interested parties sufficient time to fully evaluate Voice Link service during the summer months,” said a PSC notice. AARP New York already posted its comments as well as elaborated on its concerns in a news release Monday. Voice Link poses public safety concerns to older Americans and “it does not support critically important services such as Life Alert and home security systems,” AARP said in comments (http://bit.ly/11YQXOs), also worrying about the product’s reliance on wireless networks. Communications Workers of America Research Economist Pete Sikora also flagged lack of Life Alert support, in an interview. “Voice Link creates a possible incentive for Verizon to allow its copper network to deteriorate and for it to abandon its copper outside plant prematurely,” AARP said. “When outside plant is inadequately maintained, consumers’ safety is jeopardized because their dial tones may not function when they need to reach emergency services.” It pointed to Voice Link’s inability to make collect calls or dial 0 to reach an operator. “AARP urges the Commission to deny those elements in Verizon’s proposed Voice Link tariff that are broader than the limited temporary use on Fire Island,” AARP said. “Verizon should not have the sole discretion to decide which communities would be relegated to less reliable voice services.” AARP argued the Verizon proposal before the PSC is too broad and encouraged strict oversight of any deployment, which should be limited. “In many cases this move could leave New York consumers in a worse situation come the next major storm,” said AARP New York Director Beth Finkel in a statement.
Nonprofits, tribes and government agencies can seek low-power FM stations Oct. 15-29 in the first such LPFM filing window since 2001, in what Acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn called a “unique opportunity.” The time to file Form 318s, which were revised for the window, fits with expectations of nonprofits that back low-power radio, their officials said. Officials from groups including Free Press and Prometheus Radio Project said they and others will work to alert would-be applicants. The agency had been working to hold such a filing window by acting on applications for FM translators that dated to 2003 (CD April 19 p10), said an FCC official.
The FCC waived emergency alert system-related rules at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, so public service ads FEMA developed to tout EAS can simulate wireless emergency alert attention signals. Concern about running those WEA promotions came from some EAS participants worried about the attention signals, said a Public Safety Bureau one-year waiver order released Friday. The PSAs must present “the WEA Attention Signal in a non-misleading manner,” said the waiver (bit.ly/1aJDOwL). “That is, in a manner that does not mislead the listening or viewing public into erroneously concluding that an actual emergency message is being transmitted.” The condition is that the PSAs’ purpose must be “educating the viewing or listening public about the functions of their WEA-capable mobile devices and the WEA program,” said the order signed by bureau Chief David Turetsky. “We recommend that FEMA take steps to ensure that such PSAs clearly state that they are part of FEMA’s public education campaign.” WEA messages sent by federal, state and local agencies through carriers’ networks “include a special tone and vibration” and the texts are up to 90 characters long, FEMA said in a Wednesday news release.
Sirius XM and EchoStar seek reconsideration of the FCC decision on Part 5 rules for experimental radio service. The satellite companies asked the agency for a new definition of “emergency notifications” to clarify that “it intended to include all participants in the emergency alert system in that category,” they said in a joint petition in docket 10-236 (http://bit.ly/ZgNRHB). The failure to clearly explain which entities are included in that category “will create confusion on the part of experimental program license applicants and undermine compliance with the commission’s goal of avoiding interference threats to the EAS network,” said Sirius and EchoStar. The effect could extend well beyond the millions of Sirius subscribers because of Sirius’ role in ensuring reliable distribution of EAS messages to primary entry point stations “and ultimately those who rely on the EAS network for emergency information,” it said. In January, the commission adopted rules to streamline experimental rules and allow experimental licensees to operate in any frequency band. For experiments that may affect bands used for the provision of commercial mobile services, emergency notifications or public safety purposes, program experimental radio licensees must develop a specific plan to avoid interference to these bands prior to commencing operation, the order said (http://bit.ly/Zhi4Gr). It cited the list of commercial mobile radio service frequencies provided in the NPRM, “but does not discuss what it means by ‘emergency notification’ bands or even repeat the notice’s discussion of EAS participants’ central role in providing such notifications,” the satellite companies said Thursday. “Instead, the order is silent on the matter of what service providers come within the emergency notification category.” Ensuring that all EAS participants are entitled to the special protections for critical services “will protect the EAS network and facilitate program license applicants’ compliance with the additional requirements applicable when proposing operations in frequencies used for emergency notification services,” the two companies said.
Louisiana completed the implementation of the Alert FM and GSSNet systems across the state to improve how the state delivers voice and text emergency notifications to the public, Alert FM said on its website. The governor’s office will use the Alert FM system “to send out its emergency alerts, as will emergency managers from all 64 parishes and 42 colleges and universities across the state,” it said (http://bit.ly/11vQ8B7). The system is available for free as an app for Apple and Android devices, it said. Alert FM and GSSNet “provide a complete end-to-end, satellite-based voice and text emergency notification system for the state,” Alert FM said.
An emergency alert system expert told us she’s “delighted” a GAO report on EAS weaknesses (CD May 24 p6) “recognized the disconnect between the federal managers of the alerting system and the state and local message originators” that are its primary users. “The major problems occur at the state and local levels,” except for the 2011 first-of-its-kind nationwide test of EAS, said President Suzanne Goucher of the Maine Association of Broadcasters. “Some encouragement and guidance from the federal side would go a long way toward addressing issues of reluctance to use the system, uncertainty about how to use it properly, and lack of knowledge about how to craft an effective warning message.” FCC “guidance” via an NPRM on how states and municipalities can update their EAS plans “would be appreciated,” said Goucher.
Old and new methods of distributing emergency alert system warnings need improvement, said a new GAO report. It recommended the FCC and Federal Emergency Management Agency work to get an Internet-based EAS message system rolled out by states. “Weaknesses” in the traditional broadcast-based method of distributing warnings from government agencies to radio listeners, TV viewers and multichannel video programming distributor customers persist after a GAO report found problems in 2009, said the study. It said the FCC and FEMA have taken limited steps to improve traditional EAS after a first-of-its-kind nationwide test of the system in 2011.
LAS VEGAS -- Some 30 emergency alerts were sent to wireless subscribers in Oklahoma Monday as tornadoes struck the state, killing at least 24 people, industry officials said during a CTIA public safety panel Tuesday. Another 17 emergency alerts went out on Sunday as the storm began. However, CTIA Assistant Vice President Brian Josef said that consumer expectations for the level of warnings they'll get on their cellphones are on the rise.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System allows localities to reach those a normal EAS alert wouldn’t by triggering multiple alert systems, officials said during a FEMA webinar Wednesday on how localities can plan for, test and use the IPAWS system. The system allows officials to send out warnings using the Emergency Alert System, Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs) and other public alerting systems from a single interface. IPAWS Program Manager Manny Centeno said that because IPAWS alerts across multiple systems, it can be used to reach people beyond those a standard EAS alert would reach. He used the example of WEAs, which send short text alerts to mobile devices. “WEA can wake people up with their phone,” he said. Centeno pointed out that though the short WEA messages don’t convey much information, they can be used to get people’s attention, so that they will go check for other information that might be provided by EAS or another system through IPAWS. Centeno also said it’s important for localities new to the system to test it extensively, through tabletop exercises and other methods. “We certainly don’t want to go out there and press the big red button before we know how to press the big red button,” he said. The seminar included a presentation on the Joint Interoperability Test Command, a federal organization affiliated with the Department of Defense that helps FEMA test alert systems like IPAWS without accidentally triggering a real response. Because IPAWS involves so many different systems working together, JITC’s work is especially important, said Centeno. “Knowing that the message I put into the system is going to be properly represented elsewhere in the system -- that’s interoperability hand-in-glove.”
Dish General Counsel Stanton Dodge will appeal to lawmakers Tuesday for retransmission consent reform and characterize broadcaster opposition to Dish’s DVR Hopper service as anti-consumer. His written testimony circulated among lobbyists ahead of the Senate Communications Subcommittee’s second “state of” communications hearings under Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., scheduled for 10:30 a.m. in 253 Russell. The hearing comes as lawmakers prepare for the December 2014 expiration of Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) and the arrival of a new FCC chairman. Dodge and Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney John Begmayer will tell lawmakers that the outdated rules that govern the video market are hurting consumer choice and the public interest. Meanwhile, representatives from NAB and NCTA plan to say the video marketplace is working well and there’s little need for regulatory change, according to their prepared testimony.