South Korea will require wireless Internet service operators and cable broadcasting service providers to provide immediate warning notification according to disaster severity degrees, the nation’s National Emergency Management Agency said in an Aug. 22 notification to the World Trade Organization Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade. The WTO circulated the notification Aug. 29. The notification was made because a relevant international standard doesn’t exist or the technical content isn’t in accordance with relevant international standards and because the technical regulation may have a significant effect on the trade of other WTO members. Warning types will include typhoon, flood, downpour, earthquake and others, it said. Global mobile device manufacturers will have to install public warning system-user equipment (PWS-UE) to provide warning notification in devices that are manufactured in or imported to South Korea, that country said. A draft revision calls for PWS-UE installed in devices to provide warning notification in Korean as soon as natural disasters, man-made disasters or other severely urgent disasters happen, it said. “Reception and presentation of warning notifications to the users shall not interrupt any voice calling and warning notifications shall be popped-up on the monitor under any circumstances.” The size of the warning notification is up to a maximum of 180 bytes, which is 90 characters in the Korean language, it said. PWS-UE will provide alerting indication through an audio attention signal or vibration at the discretion of the wireless Internet and cable providers, it said. Comments are due Oct. 28. Jan. 1, 2013, is the proposed date of entry into force.
Wireless cell sites in Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island were particularly hard hit when Hurricane Irene swept up the East Coast over the weekend, according to numbers released by the FCC late Monday. It said 210,700 wireline customers didn’t have service by its latest count. Two TV stations and 10 radio stations remained down and a million cable customers had no service. But first responder communications didn’t take the same huge hit they did six years ago as a result of Hurricane Katrina, the FCC said.
The 5.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Virginia Tuesday, leading to a overload in wireless networks throughout the region, highlights an issue still to be addressed by the FCC -- the inability of wireless customers to make emergency 911 calls during the period they didn’t have service. Advocates of a national wireless public safety network were quick to cite the incident as further proof they need access to the 700 MHz D-block. But some observers said the inability get through to 911 services raises far more troubling questions. One former FCC official said the equation is simple, if people can’t connect to the network they can’t call 911.
Government officials and industry executives are seeking technical and coordination improvements to the emergency alert system so that the first-ever nationwide test of EAS is smooth. Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FCC and state emergency agencies spoke on a webinar Monday organized by FEMA. “Are You Ready for the Nationwide Emergency Alert System Test” was its title. Government officials and executives from the broadcasting and cable industries said they're making progress on improvements from earlier smaller-scale tests, and that some issues remain. And Chief Jamie Barnett of the FCC Public Safety Bureau said in a separate message to broadcasters that there will be more, “periodic” nationwide EAS tests.
Aug. 15 NATOA webinar on building fiber to the home, 2 p.m. -- http://xrl.us/bkz58c
A proposal to delay FCC enforcement of emergency alert system rules doesn’t go far enough for many broadcasters seeking a longer extension, while EAS equipment makers said the plan makes sense. The comments in interviews came after the Federal Emergency Management Agency asked the commission to delay by four months until Jan. 31 penalizing broadcasters that can’t encode and decode alerts in FEMA’s new format (CD Aug 8 p3). Public TV stations, state broadcasters and the NAB, among those seeking a delay, want it to apply to the rules taking effect, their representatives said. Executives of equipment makers said FEMA’s proposal could be a workable compromise for their industry and for all EAS participants.
The agency that developed a new alerting standard sought a delay in the FCC enforcing compliance with it among radio and TV stations. The Federal Emergency Management Agency asked the FCC to hold off for four additional months in enforcing compliance with FEMA’s Common Alerting Protocol for emergency alert systems. The current EAS deadline, which a wide array of multichannel video programming distributors and commercial and nonprofit broadcasters want extended (CD Aug 2 p12), shouldn’t be enforced until Jan. 1, FEMA said. The industry entities want the deadline that’s now set at Sept. 30 extended by at least six months after the commission comes up with certification standards for CAP. Google said more time than the current deadline may be needed.
The FCC was asked to delay further the emergency-alert system deadline for all multichannel video programming distributors and radio and TV stations to be capable of transmitting EAS warnings in a format developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Associations representing cable operators big and small and commercial and public radio and TV broadcasters asked for another delay in the effective date of common alerting protocol (CAP) rules. The commission has been taking longer than industry and some agency officials anticipated in finalizing gear certification rules so that broadcasters and MVPDs can comply with CAP. In seeking comment on the Part 11 equipment certification rules, the commission asked about a further delay (CD May 27 p4). A major maker of EAS equipment told us it still opposes a further delay.
Congress should reallocate the 700 MHz D-block to public safety as part of a debt limit agreement next week, said Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. He spoke Wednesday at a committee hearing on emergency communications, as Congress continued to wrangle over reducing the deficit and raising the debt ceiling. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., proposed giving public safety $7 billion and the D-block in a debt proposal earlier this week (CD July 27 p2). The Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday that the Reid plan would cost much less than the Senate Commerce Committee’s proposed Spectrum Act (S-911).
The FCC asked whether it should again delay mandated compliance with FEMA’s Common Alerting Protocol for EAS (CD May 27 p4), and the answer from most parties was yes. Cable operators, phone companies and broadcasters all told the FCC to push back its Sept. 30 deadline by at least 6 months and some sought an extra year. But EAS equipment maker Sage Alerting Systems said the deadline shouldn’t be pushed back and that most of the broadcast industry is ready. “Another extension will simply delay orders until near the end of the new limit, much as the extension in November 2010 halted orders for a few months,” it said. The FCC should keep the deadline for making sure EAS participants have the equipment in place to receive CAP alerts, but give them another 90 days after FEMA starts distributing emergency messages to “actually begin receiving messages” from FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System servers, it said. That way they can learn how to use the equipment, it said.