Digital Alert Systems, Telos Alliance and Nautel have partnered to “reimagine” EAS alerting for radio. The companies say their joint approach, dubbed “EAS At The Edge,” will bring the emergency alert process into the interconnected AoIP world.
The concept is on display at the 2024 NAB Show in Las Vegas.
“Unlike legacy EAS implementations that have gone unchanged since the 1990s, EAS At The Edge … leverages modern IP-based content distribution and control to route alerts precisely to their required destinations,” the companies said in a press release.
The manufacturers say traditional EAS deployments depend upon cascading layers of hardware and multiple boxes, often one per transmitter, even when serving combined transmission sites in a single market.
“EAS At The Edge replaces standalone hardware centricity with an intelligent, one-to-many approach that places critical hardware at the edges of the air chain,” read the release. “Utilizing IP-based content distribution to control and insert emergency messages via the Livewire AoIP protocol, EAS data can be geo-targeted for precise alert routing, with a single input node shared for insertion to multiple streams, resulting in significant cost savings.”
According to the press release, similar edge-to-edge systems have been deployed in video environments for years and “applying this model to radio as well will cover even more broadcast use cases.”
The groups say the flexible nature of IP-based systems ensures that EAS At The Edge complies with current regulations and can address future FCC rules as they evolve. They say this is an important feature and noted that EAS devices have undergone a series of updates in recent months, notably to prioritize CAP-formatted alerts over legacy ones.
Two demonstrations of EAS At The Edge are being offered at the 2024 NAB Show, which runs through Wednesday, April 17.
In booth W3920, Digital Alert Systems is showing a DASDEC emergency messaging platform networked to an Omnia.9 audio processor, which is typically the last step in the air chain before the transmitter. In the Nautel booth, W3042, a DASDEC is linked directly to a Nautel GV2 transmitter and virtual air chain, injecting EAS alerts directly into the transmitter and its internal “Omnia For Nautel” audio processor. When an EAS message is received, Nautel’s embedded processor instantly airs alerts on both the FM and the HD air chain.
“Omnia and Nautel have collaborated for years, and both companies recognize virtual air chains are the future,” said Telos Alliance Product Manager Geoff Steadman in the release. “EAS integration has been a sticking point due to the constraints of legacy approaches, but with Digital Alert Systems’ deep knowledge of workflow and regulatory realities, and their adoption of the Livewire+/AES67 standard, EAS finally enters the radio IP ecosystem.”
Bill Robertson, vice president of business development for Digital Alert Systems, said “What we’re showing at NAB is our first integration, but we already see more ways to evolve this as it parallels many of the things we’ve been doing in the video space.”
