Some Carriers Spurn Wireless Alerting Program
Some small carriers are notifying the FCC they will sit out a new program for sending emergency alerts to cellphones and other wireless devices. Participation in the program, whose existence is mandated by the WARN Act, is voluntary, but carriers must give customers “clear and conspicuous notice” if they elect not to take part. Filings are due Sept. 8, with many more carriers likely to opt out of the alerts, industry sources said Tuesday.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
Iowa Wireless Services, a partnership between T-Mobile USA and Iowa Network Services, is among non-participants, the company said in an FCC filing. The company reserves the right to participate later, it said. Chief Financial Officer David Frost declined to comment Tuesday, noting that the requirement is “new” and still little understood.
Nor will Pinpoint Wireless, part of Nebraska’s Pinpoint, participate, it notified the FCC. Also sitting out the alert program is Spur, Texas-based Caprock Cellular. Some paging companies said they won’t participate. One attorney active in the proceeding said some resellers may file at the FCC, though the order approved by the commission does not seem to require them to do so.
Many carriers may decline for now to participate in the Commercial Mobile Alert System program, but may later elect to do so, Harold Mordkofsky, a lawyer active in the proceeding, said in an interview. “At this point not a whole lot is known about CMAS in terms of the cost of the infrastructure and the obligations involved in participating, including periodic testing,” he said. “Everyone is obligated to file by Sept. 8, but the reality is what I'm finding is that many carriers don’t know too much about this in terms of what participation actually entails.”
The five major carriers - AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and Alltel -- are expected to participate, a wireless industry source said. “The national carriers serve more than 90 percent of the subscribers,” the person said. “In terms of the number of people affected I don’t think it’s going to be very significant.”