In the run-up to its August open meeting, the FCC has released details of a proposed plan to reexamine national alert and warning systems and explore whether fundamental changes could make them more effective.
Chairman Brendan Carr teased this proposal earlier.
The FCC next month will vote on whether to open a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would seek public comment on a variety of topics. The FCC said the process ultimately could produce fundamental changes in the workings of the Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alerts.
The NPRM draft, if approved, will:
- Seek comment on the objectives that effective alert and warning systems should serve.
- Explore which entities need to be able to send alerts to fully accomplish these objectives and how these needs should be addressed in the design of alerting systems.
- Consider the alert transmission capabilities that a national public alert and warning system must have to achieve its objectives, including the need for resilience, geographic targeting and security.
- Examine the kinds of information that needs to be conveyed to the public and how that information needs to be conveyed for the nation’s alert and warning systems to be effective.
- Ask whether EAS and WEA are meeting the needs and expectations of both the public and alerting authorities and, if not, whether EAS and WEA need to be redesigned to “fully reach their potential for achieving the nation’s alerting objectives.”
The draft NPRM notes that “Congress established the commission for the purposes of, among other things, the national defense and promoting safety of life and property through the regulation of wire and radio communications networks.”
“For nearly 75 years, the commission has implemented this mandate by adopting rules that set technical and other requirements to provide the public with an effective national public alert and warning system,” the proposed NPRM explained.
“The commission’s approach to emergency alerting has been to implement regulations intended to leverage existing commercial communications infrastructure for public safety purposes and to update that existing capability over time to reflect advances in technology and evolving consumer expectations. While this approach has gradually improved the nation’s alerting capabilities, it may also have restricted innovation by preserving alerting frameworks that are decades old without examining whether more fundamental structural changes are warranted.”
To overcome that issue, the draft NPRM seeks to identify what goals the nation’s alert and warning systems should be designed to serve. “Proceeding from these first principles will enable the commission to explore alternatives to our historical regulatory approach and consider how to maximize the usefulness effectiveness, and resiliency of EAS and WEA consistent with our legal authority.”
The proposal extensively also covers questions and issues regarding how alerts are delivered, with an eye toward changing that infrastructure to reflect how people use devices and consume media.
As part of that effort, it raises questions about whether the current system of relying on radio and TV broadcasts and cable systems is outmoded.
“Today, the public can receive emergency alerts from various sources like mobile devices, radio and television broadcasts, cable services, wireline video services and road signs,” the draft states. “The public, however, increasingly engages with content through other media and platforms that are not equipped to interrupt content to provide emergency messages, such as personal computers, tablets without commercial mobile service, wearable technology, gaming consoles, smart speakers, streaming services and social media.
“This shift in consumer behavior indicates that fewer people may be using the platforms through which emergency messages have been traditionally issued, which may frustrate the EAS and WEA systems’ objectives of widespread public notification about emergencies.”
The proposal does not mention the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which the Trump administration is in the process of defunding. CPB has played an important role in channeling funding to public stations to implement and upgrade their alerting systems.
It also makes no mention of ATSC 3.0 or the transition to NextGenTV/ATSC 3.0. Proponents of 3.0 broadcasts have touted its capabilities for delivering much more robust and informative alerts.
The full proposed NPRM can be found here.
