Officials in California sent out an AMBER alert for the first time over a cellphone through the Wireless Emergency Alert program. Police in Southern California broadcast the alert as police searched for a man suspected of killing a woman and kidnapping her children (http://lat.ms/1314kDR. The system requires cellphone customers to opt out if they do not want to receive alerts.
"Since it appears that the smaller spectrum slice of 1755-1780 can be cleared without any need to impact BAS operations, we have no idea why DOD is making clearing those 25 megahertz contingent on ’sharing’ 85 with us,” said NAB Executive Vice President Rick Kaplan, former chief of the FCC Wireless Bureau. “Moreover, in NTIA’s spectrum report released just last year, DOD asserted that nearly all of its operations could not share spectrum with broadcasters in the BAS band. No new testing has been done, so it’s unclear what has changed. The only thing that has changed recently is that we just finished shrinking our BAS allocation from 120 to 85 megahertz to make way for mobile broadband.”
The FCC Public Safety Bureau denied several requests for waivers of its requirement that Emergency Alert System participants be able to receive Common Area Protocol (CAP) messages, the commission said in a public notice Monday (http://bit.ly/15z062m). Southern Communications Volunteers, Applegate Media, New Wave, Lakeview Cable, RB3, and Reach Broadband had requested waivers of the commission’s June 30, 2012 deadline for EAS participants to “have installed operational equipment that can receive and process EAS alerts” in CAP, and all have been denied, the PN said. SCV, New Wave, Lakeview, Reach, and Applegate all said they could not meet the deadline because of “vendor delay” preventing them from getting the needed equipment, the PN said. However, the Public Safety Bureau denied their waivers because their waiver requests “show that they chose to wait until very close to the deadline to order equipment, and thus any delay in receiving equipment was entirely attributable to each company’s business decisions,” the PN said. The Bureau also said by failing to order the equipment on time, the companies had let the public down. “The Commission implemented the June 30 deadline for CAP compliance in order to ensure that ‘Next Generation EAS’ would be transmitted in an efficient, rapid, and secure manner over a variety of formats” said the PN. “We find that the lack of due diligence shown by the Petitioners to obtain the required equipment in a timely fashion is inconsistent with the public interest.” However, New Wave and several of the other companies have additional CAP waiver requests before the FCC that cite other waiver justifications -- such as a lack of broadband internet access -- and this order does not affect those petitions, the PN said. “We're reviewing the order,” said Cinnamon Mueller attorney Scott Friedman, who represents New Wave, Reach Broadband and Lakeview Cable.
A chain of truck stops can’t start a wireless TV service that would require waivers to operate in a band used by broadcasters, cable programmers and the federal government, said the FCC. The “entirely new use” of the cable-TV relay service band to run a multichannel video distribution system at Flying J truck stops throughout the U.S. shouldn’t be pursued by a waiver, said an order approved by commissioners and released Tuesday. It said such a change is “the province of a rulemaking.” Since 2006, when Clarity Media Systems first requested the waivers that were a year later denied by the Media Bureau, that company’s owner, Flying J, has filed for bankruptcy and in 2010 combined with another truck stop chain.
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.