[CAP] The "User Experience" of Warnings in EAS

[Art Botterell]

On May 8, 2008, at 5/8/08 8:36 PM, Kepner, Rita Marie wrote:
> 	Has anyone seen or heard of anything that shows the summit will
> address relay of EAS messages from state and local emergency officials
> to potentially impacted people?

Hi Rita! -

The FCC actually adopted rules earlier this year that would extend  
mandatory carriage to include messages from state governors.  Which  
sparked more confusion than enthusiasm, mostly because the current  
generation of EAS equipment simply doesn't know how to work that way.   
Local officials, who generate most alerts, remain at the mercy of  
their local stations' programmers, wherever they might be.

So there's some urgency at the FCC about getting the CAP-based  
conversion of EAS rolling, if only to address that particular  
implementation problem.  But meanwhile FEMA has asserted that their  
involvement in state and local warning programs is limited by law.   
That, combined with the the June 2006 executive order that put DHS in  
charge of federal warning programs, threatens to perpetuate the  
capability gap you describe and, as a practical matter, to bring the  
whole EAS upgrade process to a halt.

As I mentioned earlier, prior to the FCC confab on the 19th there's  
going to be a hearing on the Hill on the 14th.  I'm given to  
understand that one of the topics will be that FEMA position.  So that  
one could be interesting, too.

I think the hearing on the 14th may be streamed from somewhere on http://homeland.house.gov 
, and I've been told the FCC meeting will be streaming from http://www.fcc.gov 
.

- Art