EAS Agencies, Industry Participants Divided Over LEW Code vs. BLU Code
Emergency alert system entities, EAS participants and law enforcement organizations divided over whether incidents involving danger to police should have their own EAS code, in comments in FCC docket 15-94 by Monday’s deadline. Most commenters -- including APCO, DOJ (see 1707310045) and the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC) -- support creating the alert code. Others believe existing codes can serve the same function, and adding another will further dilute effectiveness of the EAS system or increase expense. The proposed BLU event code is “another vanity Event Code intended to meet the needs of the one/few at the expense of further eroding the intrinsic value of mass alerting for more significant and substantive mass call-to-action notifications,” said broadcasting technical service provider McCarthy Radio Enterprises.
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Commenters in favor of using an existing code tended to echo Monroe Electronics' position that the Law Enforcement Warning code is intended to cover incidents pertaining to police situations (see 1707260031). DOJ said the LEW code has been diluted and is sometimes used for road warnings.
The existing EAS architecture “has the capacity to support Blue Alerts with ease,” said the city of New York. The legislation behind the Blue Alert NPRM is named for two NYPD officers murdered in 2014. “Blue Alert event codes will be most important for attention and importance given such alerts by participants in the EAS and WEA [wireless emergency alert] systems,” said Boulder Regional Emergency Telephone Service Authority (BRESTA). “Such a code would improve the effectiveness of the National Blue Alert Network and facilitate the integration of Blue Alert plans nationwide,’" said APCO. Motorola Solutions also supported the new code. BRESTA said the code should apply to incidents involving danger to any first responder.
Listeners don’t know the difference among event codes, some commenters said. “Unless a listener has a suitable equipped receiver/decoder to differentiate the Event Code, not a single radio or aural TV listener will ever distinguish the difference,” said McCarthy Radio. BRESTA conceded the public won’t be able to tell the difference, but said the new code would encourage EAS personnel to take special notice. “Blue Alert event code will be most important for attention and importance given such alerts by participants in the EAS and WEA systems,” said BRESTA. “Such a code would improve the effectiveness of the National Blue Alert Network and facilitate the integration of Blue Alert plans nationwide," said APCO.
The American Cable Association meanwhile objected to the new code, saying it would require additional costs and efforts on the behalf of EAS participants, an argument also raised by Monroe. "Although the NPRM anticipates that the addition of a new code could be implemented by EAS Participants via ‘minimally burdensome and low-cost software downloads,’ there is no guarantee that such updates would not impose costs difficult for smaller providers, ACA said.
Use of the code by EAS participants should be strictly voluntary, said NPSTC. Since there are already several EAS codes, broadcaster personnel are rarely sure which alerts are required and which aren’t, so many don’t air voluntary alerts, McCarthy said. “The vast majority of stations will simply ignore it’s existence.”
Blue Alerts will be most valuable where they could include more information or images, NPSTC said. Capability to include such information and better ability to geo-target such alerts would be available under the proposed ATSC 3.0 standard, said One Media, an affiliate of Sinclair Broadcast focused on 3.0 applications. “Such alerts would be more detailed, more robust, more tailored and more beneficial if transmitted using Next Gen TV,” said One Media, saying the FCC should expeditiously approve the new standard. "Effective geo-targeting is important to preserve the public’s trust in emergency alerts,” APCO said.
New York City and APCO urged the FCC to authorize Blue Alert WEAs as well. That would allow “distribution of critical emergency information to a mobile population,” the city said.