Yesterday, Fletcher Heald attorneys Frank Montero and Davina Sashkin with Pat Roberts of the Florida Association of Broadcasters (“FAB”), and their special guests Lisa Fowlkes and Christina Clearwater of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, and Craig Fugate, former FEMA Administrator and founder of Fugate Consulting, presented a webinar in consultation with the … Continue Reading
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (“FEMA”) has announced that it will not conduct a national test of the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (“IPAWS”) via the broadcast Emergency Alert System (“EAS”) and Wireless Emergency Alert (“WEA”) system this year. As we have written about in the past, EAS tests are sometimes postponed due to … Continue Reading
Your Emergency Alert System (EAS) equipment may have stopped passing through tests received via the equipment’s Internet connection to the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS) because one of the trust root certificates used to validate digital signatures associated with alerts expired a little over a week ago. If your EAS equipment is rejecting … Continue Reading
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (“FEMA”) in coordination with the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC” or the “Commission”), will conduct a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (“EAS”) on August 7th, at 2:20 pm EDT. If conditions such as a real emergency or other unforeseen circumstances occur on the day of the test, a backup … Continue Reading
If you've been worrying about whether the "information collection" aspects of the revised EAS rules would be in effect soon enough to give everybody time to meet the upcoming deadline for CAP compliance, you can breathe easy.… Continue Reading
The FCC mandated a couple of months ago that text-to-speech conversion of EAS messages by EAS participants would not be permitted. That came as disappointing news to, among others, FEMA. But FEMA should be happy now.… Continue Reading
If you're an EAS participant and you're inclined to read the FCC's Fifth Report and Order (and, BTW, you should), here's a handy glossary of the 40+ abbreviations and acronyms the FCC has sprinkled throughout the document.… Continue Reading
Last month the Commission took another major step in its effort to drag the Emergency Alert System (EAS) into the digital era. With the June 30, 2012 deadline for CAP-compliance fast approaching, the Commission's action came none too soon.… Continue Reading
On the EAS front: the Commission has issued another notice of proposed rulemaking aimed at advancing the transition to a CAP-based emergency alert system. Newly-announced comment deadlines are coming up fast. Good news: the notice suggests that the FCC is open to possible extension of the CAP implementation deadline, currently set for September 30.… Continue Reading
With Thanksgiving less than 36 hours away, the Commission has given us all something to be thankful for -- by extending, until September 30, 2011, the deadline for all EAS participants to implement the Common Alerting Protocol reception requirement.… Continue Reading
With FEMA's adoption of Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) standards, all EAS participants now have 180 days to prepare themselves to accept CAP-based EAS alerts. But hold on a minute -- the FCC still hasn't amended its own rules to provide for CAP-based emergency messaging.… Continue Reading
In anticipation of an impending overhaul of the Emergency Alert System to accommodate the Common Alerting Protocol standard, the Commission has invited comments on possible changes to any or all of Part 11 of the Rules.… Continue Reading