Initial Findings Pronounce EAS Test 'Success,' Says Public Safety Bureau

The report concedes there's room for improvement, especially on efforts to broadcast Spanish language alerts and on uniformity in state EAS plans. Both of those issues would have been somewhat addressed or at least studied under an EAS draft item that was abruptly pulled from the FCC's December open meeting (see 1612140067), EAS officials told us. The preliminary report backs up conclusions that EAS officials had reached shortly after the test ended in September (see 1609280074), and contains few surprises, said Suzanne Goucher, CEO of the Maine Association of Broadcasters. She's hopeful a more detailed report set for January will break down information state by state. She sits on a subcommittee of the FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council.

The 2016 test had a 26 percent increase in participation over 2011, with “over 21,000” broadcasters, pay-TV systems and other EAS participants involved in the test, said the Public Safety Bureau. Of those, participants, 96 percent received the test alert, a 12 percentage point improvement over 2011, the bureau said. Eighty-five percent of the test participants retransmitted their alerts, and 69 percent reported no complications, the bureau said. In 2011, an audio error caused the test message to loop, leading to many stations not receiving the alert. For the 2016 test, the broadcast EAS alert was backed up with the Federal Emergency Management Agency Integrated Public Alert Warning System (IPAWS), which provided high quality audio preventing many such errors.

Though the initial findings show 74 EAS participants retransmitted a Spanish language version of the test alert as planned, others were prevented from doing so by some of the safeguards intended to prevent a repeat of the 2011 test errors, the report said. Spanish language alerts were available only on the IPAWS system, but stations are required to retransmit the first alert they receive, whether from IPAWS or another broadcaster upstream in the “daisy chain” of EAS stations, the report said. Stations that received the alert first from another broadcast station didn't have the option to transmit in Spanish, even if they served a Spanish-language audience. Some stations “were not able to deliver the Spanish language alert because they received the test from an over-the-air broadcast source before their EAS equipment performed its regular check of the IPAWS Internet feed (which typically occurs every 30 seconds).” the report said.

That's a problem that could be addressed by configuring equipment to automatically check for a new IPAWS alert when a broadcast report is received, said Ed Czarnecki, Monroe Electronics senior director-global government affairs, business and technology strategy, in an interview Wednesday. Requiring stations to wait for the next 30-second interval to receive an IPAWS alert wouldn't be an option when there's a fast-moving emergency such as an earthquake or a tidal wave, Goucher said. Automatically checking as alerts are received would save those seconds, Czarnecki said. The bureau report echoed this point. “Requiring EAS Participants check the Internet-based IPAWS feed upon receiving a broadcast alert and transmit the corresponding CAP [common alerting protocol] alert, if available, would ensure that the most timely and content-rich version of the alert is broadcast,” said the report.

Changes to the alerting system that would address the issue were to be addressed in the draft order and Further NPRM that was pulled from the FCC's December meeting, Czarnecki said. That item also contained provisions on standardizing EAS plans, Goucher said, an issue also noted in the bureau's initial findings. “The preparations for the test highlighted shortfalls in some state EAS plans,” said the report. “Some plans were difficult for EAS Participants to locate, while others presented monitoring obligations and other information in a manner that EAS Participants found difficult to implement.“ With the change in leadership at the FCC, it's not clear if the draft item will resurface, EAS officials said. Commissioner Mike O’Rielly opposed the item as having an insufficient cost benefit analysis and burdensome requirements.

The report also notes the test “was conducted in an environment that posed a low threat for cyberattacks.” A system that would allow EAS participants to “integrate basic cybersecurity guidelines into the EAS equipment readiness rules” would allow the EAS system to be better prepared for cyberattacks, the report said. Cybersecurity provisions were also a part of the stalled draft item. The bureau is still accepting late-filed test results, so some of the report's conclusions could change in the more detailed report expected in January, the initial findings said.