CSRIC Recommends FCC Reverse Course to OK Text-to-Speech CAP EAS

The CSRIC added its voice to government and industry EAS players including broadcasters and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which developed CAP, in asking the commission to change its January order on equipment certification for the new format. The Nebraska State Emergency Communications Committee separately said the state has put “on hold” a system for law enforcement and others to generate CAP messages until the text-to-speech issue is worked out. There’s “the potential harm to the public and cost to Washington State” if text-to-speech isn’t allowed, said the Washington State Association of Broadcasters. As many as 26 states are using CAP, said co-Chairman Ed Czarnecki of the panel’s CAP working group.

Parts of that CAP order take effect April 23, the commission said in a notice appearing in the daily email of the Federal Register (http://xrl.us/bmy54i) as the CSRIC met. Lack of publication prompted concern at the gathering, because the agency has a June 30 deadline for all EAS participants to have CAP compliant equipment. It will be a “significant challenge” for some devices to meet the deadline, Czarnecki said. FEMA hasn’t yet posted online information that’s “absolutely necessary for new products ... to receive their required Part 11 CAP certification,” he said.

The panel recommended the FCC and FEMA “closely coordinate” on the equipment certification process, as some intermediary devices might have trouble being certified because time’s short, Czarnecki said. The commission shouldn’t delay the deadline, said the executive at EAS encoder-decoder maker Monroe Electronics. It should ensure gear certifications are for the specific hardware models and software versions that were tested, he recommended. FEMA and FCC representatives had no comment for this story.

EAS participants also have work to do, the CSRIC said. It said alert participants should work with manufacturers to ensure equipment is certified. If the commission doesn’t reverse course on the Part 11 order, all EAS participants must disable by June 30 the text-to-speech option on devices, Czarnecki said. “There must be proactive activity on the part of the participants ... so they are in compliance with CAP EAS rules.” If text-to-speech alerts are authorized, “then our best practices get a little bit simpler” and devices that automatically read on-air warnings should incorporate “local lexicon” to “a reasonable degree” and fix any pronunciation problems, Czarnecki said.

Allowing text to speech would make CAP more affordable for “state and local governments” and lower the barrier to entry” for them to originate alerts in the format, Czarnecki said. It’s easier for EAS participants -- which include all subscription-video providers and radio and TV stations -- because they wouldn’t need to access an audio file at the same time for a nationwide alert, he said. FEMA’s integrated public alert and warning system “itself is not based on the use of sending an audio file from the government” as envisioned by the FCC’s order, Czarnecki said. “This rule essentially poses an enormous hurdle to operation of the IPAWS system” and the National Weather Service also wasn’t “planning on sending audio files downstream,” he said. “This rule poses a number of complications."

Broadcast and cable executives visited the FCC this and last week to seek changes to the Part 11 order, filings in docket 04-296 show. The Nebraska State Emergency Communications Committee sought text to speech because that’s what IPAWS and NWS will use. “If local TTS is not allowed by broadcast and cable we do not know how a CAP message could reliably make it to the public,” the committee said (http://xrl.us/bmy585). “It would not be prudent to proceed with the expense and effort developing CAP generation for local or statewide emergency messages in Nebraska."

In Washington, the state finds its text-to-speech system “effective and reliable,” the broadcasters’ association said (http://xrl.us/bmy59h). “The technology is an effective and mature technology,” it reported executives from radio and TV stations told an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. The order’s requirement that EAS providers that lack broadband access and so can’t get CAP alerts seek exemptions twice yearly is a “significant burden” on small cable operators, the American Cable Association reported (http://xrl.us/bmy59y) an executive told Deputy Chief Lisa Fowlkes and others in the Public Safety Bureau. “The Commission has established streamlined waiver processes in other rulemakings in which company officers would simply certify that they meet the qualifications for a waiver through submission by letter to the appropriate Bureau or by online filing in the rulemaking docket, and such waivers would either be deemed automatically approved or would be processed on an expedited basis.”