A House subcommittee approved a bipartisan bill providing $13.4 million annually from 2012 through 2016 to the Integrated Public Alert Warning System (IPAWS), the next-generation emergency alert and warning network. HR-3563 was unanimously approved in a voice vote Thursday morning in the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications. The bill will ensure that the IPAWS programs “work reliably, effectively and efficiently to ensure the appropriate use of taxpayer funds,” said Chairman Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla. It authorizes $5 million less than the program received in FY2011, and provides the IPAWS program with “needed direction,” Bilirakis said. The subcommittee approved by voice an amendment by Ranking Member Laura Richardson, D-Calif., that would require the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide more training for senders of alerts. Richardson withdrew another amendment requiring testing of the IPAWS system at least every two years. Bilirakis said he'd work with Richardson on the amendment before the bill moved to a full committee markup.
As some broadcasters gear up for a mobile emergency alert system pilot project, they said they expect the EAS project to complement the current system and lead to further use of mobile DTV. With three public TV operations as test markets for the project, it will reassert the role of broadcasters as initial informers during emergencies and disasters, some executives said.
There was little agreement on a Federal Emergency Management Agency webcast Tuesday about when the government should next test the national emergency alert system. Several problems with the simulation have been identified since a Nov. 9 EAS test (CD Nov 18 p1), which was the first time the EAS was triggered nationwide. When Manny Centeno, FEMA program manager for the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, asked the roundtable participants when the next test should be, dates as early as April 1 and as late as November, were suggested.
Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., plans to keep tabs on the FCC and Federal Emergency Management Agency as the agencies investigate glitches during last week’s national test of the Emergency Alert System. Speaking to reporters after a meeting with FEMA and FCC officials Thursday, the House Communications Subcommittee chairman said he’s asked the agencies for more information but doesn’t plan any hearings. The FCC and FEMA gave a “very good and comprehensive report,” Walden said. “I think they're on it, I think they get it, and I think they want to make it work.” A broadcasting executive told us an audio problem caused a cascade-like effect during the test, while a public-access channel executive said those networks didn’t get the message.
Sprint Nextel plans to become the first U.S. carrier to offer emergency alerts on its wireless network, the company announced. The system would allow FEMA to accept and deliver warning messages to wireless networks from the president of the United States, the National Weather Service and state and local emergency operations centers. Sprint plans to hold the first test of its alerting technology in New York City later this year. “Providing immediate, reliable wireless communications before, during and following an emergency situation is trademark of Sprint’s service,” said Steve Elfman, Sprint president-network operations and wholesale.
The U.S. government ought to examine the public outreach that was made for the Nov. 9 nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS), an FCC panel said. The Consumer Advisory Committee recommended to the commission that the agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which triggered the first-ever U.S.-wide EAS test, examine the “effectiveness” of outreach. Such a review also should examine communications with people who can’t hear well or can’t see well or who have “dual sensory loss disabilities,” the committee said. It also asked the FCC to start a review of what sort of information was available during the test to people with hearing disabilities. The audio of the test couldn’t be heard on some pay-TV stations and broadcast stations (CD Nov 14 p8). “There were a number of issues uncovered with regard to cable and satellite alerts,” wrote broadcast lawyers on the Pillsbury Winthrop law firm’s blog. Individual radio and TV stations in Oregon “and a number of other locations apparently” didn’t get the test, or had “excessive background audio noise in the test message,” attorneys Scott Flick and Paul Cicelski wrote Friday. Some TV stations received the test’s “video but no audio,” they added (http://xrl.us/bmimij). But “initial reports seem to indicate that the alert was heard in the vast majority of locations, and that the next area to focus on is ensuring that the content of the alert itself is clear and understandable to the public."
An NPR satellite feed caused a systemic audio glitch with Wednesday’s first-ever nationwide test (CD Nov 10 p2) of the emergency alert system (EAS). The Squawk Channel feed was used by some commercial radio and TV stations and multichannel video programming providers to carry the test alert from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, executives said. The feed also was used for some noncommercial stations, which got the channel directly from NPR and who then passed it onto the other types of EAS participants. Broadcasters and MVPDs that relied on the feed for the test had the audio test message disrupted. The exercise nonetheless worked as intended, because the EAS participants got the simulated warning and passed it on, even though the announcement couldn’t be clearly heard, said executives who participated in the test.
The first-ever national emergency alert system test saw glitches at cable operators, DBS providers and commercial and nonprofit radio and TV broadcasters, our survey of those EAS participants and our own research found. The exercise was shortened last week to 30 seconds from three minutes, after the NCTA unsuccessfully sought a delay because many cable encoder-decoder units that pass the alert on couldn’t show video saying it was a test (CD Nov 7 p6). That prompted worries among government and industry officials that viewers would think an actual emergency occurred, but broadcast executives said that didn’t appear to have happened, based on initial reports. All EAS participants have a month and a half to report to the FCC how things went.
Emergency Alert System participants must not broadcast EAS tones or attention signals except during Wednesday’s test of the national EAS system (CD Nov 7 p6), the FCC said Tuesday. That means any news coverage of the test should exclude the EAS tones, codes and attention signals, it said in a public notice released by the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau. “Any rebroadcast of the EAS tones and attention signal not only would violate FCC rules, but would also pose a public danger because rebroadcast of the tones could trigger a false alert from EAS equipment that picks up such a rebroadcast."
The U.S. government shortened the length of Wednesday’s emergency alert system nationwide test to 30 seconds from more than three minutes, a public noticed released by the FCC Thursday said. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, shortening the duration of the test will achieve its two goals of testing the system while minimizing the potential disruption and chance for creating concern among the public. That’s something broadcasters and pay-TV providers have been working to remedy, along with the government (CD Oct 28 p12). FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate on Friday asked EAS stakeholders for help educating the public about the exercise.