Wireless Carriers Skipping EAS Program Likely Will Have to Warn Subscribers

Brian Daly of AT&T, leader of the Communications Technology Group, said his group has spent considerable time setting notification requirements for carriers opting not to participate in the program. “We had a lot of good help on this,” he said. “We tried to keep it as simple as we could but still express the message… We recommend that the text be that this wireless provider does not transmit emergency alerts and then we propose to cite the FCC rules that require this notification.”

Carriers participating only in part in the program would have to notify subscribers. “Wireless emergency alerts may not be available in the entire service area or on all devices,” Daly said. Subscribers would be advised to contact a sales representative or to check the carrier’s website.

Daly said his working group will recommend that all warning messages contain the nature of the emergency, what the subscriber should do, the affected area, when the message expires and the sending agency. The group still is deciding what audio signal should accompany the message, including the frequency range, signal duration and interlude between warnings. “We have access to some audio and tactile experts and we're trying to use their expertise,” he said. “Hopefully within the next 30 days or so we will have some recommendations.”

Work remains on filtering logic, or how the gateway determines which messages must be broadcast, and other issues, said Anthony Melone of Verizon Wireless, leader of the Alerting Gateway Group. “Messages will come in in sequences and updates and cancellations will come in,” he said. “We can’t assume that all of those messages will be logical.” For example, he said, the original message may come in with a low warning level that does not pass the filter. It makes no sense to respond by transmitting a cancellation that comes into the gateway at a higher severity level, he said.

As many as 25,000 alerts will be broadcast at various levels each year, Melone said. The alert gateway being created should have no trouble handling this volume, he said. “What does the alert gateway need to handle on a per second basis?” he said. “We came up with 300 messages per second would be more than adequate in the expected initial volume… Quite frankly, the capacity limitations on this architecture will be based on what the service providers can handle as opposed to what the alert gateway can handle.”

Recent Alerting Interface Group meetings have focused on rules to guarantee that messages broadcast are accurate, said group leader David Webb of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. These requirements include reliable attribution of all messages to an individual sender, acceptances by individuals holding a specified credential or from a certified system and countersigning by a second credentialed sender. All messages will be logged and entered into the system so they can be audited.

The group has decided that messages should be forwarded on a “first in, first out” basis, though presidential warnings will get top priority, Webb said. The gateway, not the service provider, determines the order in which messages are to be delivered.

Another issue being worked out is minimizing battery drain in wireless devices built with new emergency alert capacity. “Battery life is still an open issue,” said Jeff Goldthorp of the FCC. “We were hoping to have that resolved at this meeting but there are some questions lingering.”