New EAS System On Its Way … Maybe

All TV stations are facing a federally mandated Sept. 30 deadline to put in place equipment that will enable them to receive next-generation emergency alerts — the so-called Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) messages. But stations are not rushing to comply.

The reason: the FCC may propose additional requirements for the equipment in a rulemaking and broadcasters want to be sure there aren’t any “surprises” before making investments in new gear. The rulemaking is currently being circulated among the commissioners, and is expected to be released any day now.

“It just seems to be a very long, dragged-out process,” says Suzanne Goucher, president of the Maine Association of Broadcasters and co-chair of the Emergency Alert System Committee of the National Alliance of State Broadcasters Associations. If the FCC makes any significant changes to its rules, there could be “a lot of work to be done in a short amount of time.”

Efforts have been underway for years to revamp and make more robust the Emergency Alert System (EAS), the national system set up to warn the public in the event of a national crisis or local emergency.

The alert system was built to allow the president to deliver messages during a nuclear-type emergency, but it’s mostly used for local and regional weather emergencies and AMBER alerts.

Government agencies and industry groups worked together to develop a new IP-based method for delivering messages to TV and radio stations and to cable systems and came up with CAP. The CAP messages will be distributed through the Internet, and will open the opportunity for government officials to send more detailed messages to targeted audiences. 

While today’s EAS messages can be targeted only to the county level and simply scroll across the screen, the CAP messages can be targeted to smaller areas and can include such graphics as a picture of a kidnapped child or a map of his abductor’s suspected whereabouts.

To receive the CAP message, stations and cable systems have to buy and install gear costing between $2,000 and $3,000. No data is available on how many stations and systems have made the investment, but broadcast industry sources say that only about one-third of stations are ready to go.

Last year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) established a certification process for CAP-enabled products. Once that happened, the FCC gave broadcasters and cable operators 180 days to purchase and install that equipment. The deadline was extended to Sept. 30, and some broadcasters are hoping for another deadline extension. But the FCC so far has signaled that it has no intention of pushing it back any further, even though it is tinkering with its own equipment requirements.

Once the FCC releases its rulemaking, there will be a 30-day public comment period followed by a 15-day window for reply comments. Agency officials say that the rulemaking process should be concluded in plenty of time for stations to comply with the Sept. 30 deadline.

Equipment makers say they are ready to fill order today, noting that whatever requirements the FCC imposes can probably be implemented in software.

“There are no remaining technical reasons to delay it,” said Harold Price, president of Sage Alerting Systems, which makes CAP-enabled equipment. “Really, the only reason to delay comes down to financing,” he said. “If stations paid attention since 2007, they should be prepared. The CAP protocol has been finalized and several hardware solutions have passed FEMA’s conformity assessment test, including the Sage Digital ENDEC.”

The vendors’ one concern is a last-minute rush of orders this summer. “A lot of folks are holding off a little bit,” said Arthur Leisey, director of EAS for Trilithic, which offer FEMA-certified gear. “As we come up to the deadline, if folks wait to the very end, there could be a backlog.”

Given the Sept. 30 deadline, it’s likely the stations will be ready to receive CAP message long before the government is ready to send them.

FEMA, for its part, says it can currently send CAP messages to prototype devices, and that it will be fully operational by Sept. 30. States, on the other hand, are another story. 

It’s up to the states to relay the FEMA message to the stations and today only a few states have CAP equipment in place and working. According to Goucher, it costs states “tens of thousands of dollars” to implement the system, and for the many states that are looking to slash their budgets, that investment is “very problematic.”

“There is nothing that requires [any state] to actually send a CAP-enabled message,” explained Goucher. “They’ll adopt CAPs when they feel like adopting CAPs,” she said.

Goucher believes that it would make sense for stations to put off the installation of equipment to receive CAP until the states have installed equipment to send it.

The Maine and Texas Association of Broadcasters made a joint filing at the FCC in January, urging the commission to adjust its requirements for broadcasters based on whether a state is even ready to send the CAP messages.

“It would be a financial disaster for EAS participants to expend their otherwise limited resources in configuring their own CAP-compliant systems, only to learn later that the systems installed by the respective state and local authorities are not compatible with those used by other EAS participants, thereby frustrating the federal government’s own goal of a uniform, seamless, efficient and effective EAS system,” the groups said.

To give the states an incentive to move forward with CAP, the FCC included in its 2007 rules a requirement that stations’ Emergency Alert Systems also carry state governors’ emergency alerts.

The CAP initiative is just one piece of a broader government effort to be sure the country has a robust, dependable EAS that can reach all segments of the population.

Today, that system is operated under “a patchwork of technologies and processes,” according to the national nonprofit Partnership for Public Warning.  CAP is intended to help standardize the alerts generated from various government agencies.

Separately, the FCC in February authorized a national EAS test to assess the current system and determine what improvements need to be made to further strengthen it. A national presidential alert has never been sent, and the system has never been tested top-to-bottom. Although the date for the test has not been set, the agency does not intend to wait until stations have installed the CAP equipment.