FCC ‘Casts Wider Net,’ Broadening Alert Rules
The FCC extended national warning system rules to digital broadcast and cable TV, digital audio broadcasting, satellite radio, and DBS -- previously not subject to Emergency Alert System (EAS) controls. All 4 commissioners called the move the first step of many in an EAS reform that will account for new technology and language diversity. A Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on several topics, such as integration of wireless technologies and telco fiber-to- the-home into the alert system, accompanied the Thurs. order.
“There remains some heavy lifting to do very soon,” said Comr. Adelstein. Comr. Copps agreed: “We don’t have the luxury of time in these efforts -- terrorists and hurricanes don’t wait on us.” EAS reform will stay at the Enforcement Bureau’s Office Homeland Security until a planned Public Safety/Homeland Security Bureau is running, Enforcement Bureau officials said, though they didn’t say when that will happen.
The EAS order gives DTV and digital audio broadcasters and digital cable until Dec. 31, 2006, to “participate in all national EAS activations… over all program streams,” said Jean Ann Collins, Enforcement Bureau senior counsel. DBS and satellite radio also will be required to carry national EAS alerts, though DBS’s compliance date is May 31, 2007, Collins said, acknowledging technical hurdles unique to broadcasting via satellite. Satellite broadcasters may design their own distribution systems, she said, but national EAS messages must be sent to all viewers and listeners, “regardless of the channel they are tuned to.”
The order didn’t extend EAS rules below the national level. Participation in state and local emergency alerts will remain voluntary, Collins said. But, referring to satellite radio and DBS, Collins said the Enforcement Bureau encourages more development of state and local alert transmission “in a manner consistent with the technology.” And when state and local alerts aren’t sent over a given system, subscribers must be informed of that, she said. Collins said DBS will have to “pass through” all EAS messages aired on local channels to subscribers getting the channels via local-into-local service.
The order follows Congressional action on the topic. The Senate Commerce Committee last week marked up and passed the Warning, Alert, & Response Network (WARN) Act, a bill to set up an enhanced emergency alert system at NOAA. The WARN act would finance an all-hazards alert system for sending warnings across many devices, including mobile phones and BlackBerrys, as well as digital and analog broadcast, cable, and satellite TV and radio.
The WARN Act would give governors access to EAS to give messages in their states -- one focus of the FCC’s further inquiry, and a component Comr. Adelstein called “critical.” Adelstein said the FCC will seek comment on whether it should require EAS participants to transmit EAS messages by governors of states in which they provide services. “The FNPRM also seeks comment on how best to coordinate with state and local governments to help implement” the wider EAS rules, he said.
Rep. Whitfield (R-Ky.), one of 21 House lawmakers who earlier this month wrote to Chmn. Martin asking that EAS be extended to satellite radio, called the order a “large step forward” in making sure the “widest net is cast to alert the public in emergency situations.” Corporate reactions to the broader EAS rules were positive, though DBS and satellite radio firms said their engineers will have to work through the technical side of compliance. DirecTV has said it likely will revamp its system via set- top boxes configured to tune to a single channel carrying the EAS message when one is aired, which it said would take at least 18 months to implement.