Digital Alert Systems Highlights Multilingual Support for Canadian EAS

LYNDONVILLE, N.Y.-- Canada has a unique CAP messaging profile, and Digital Alert Systems says its products are ready. The company said its systems will allow its customers to provide geographically and linguistically targeted emergency alerts.

The manufacturer said its broadcast-oriented DASDEC emergency messaging platform — along with the R189 One-Net EAS encoder/decoder system, sold by its parent Monroe Electronics to cable users and other industries — “are the first to provide comprehensive support for Canada’s National Alert Aggregation and Dissemination system requirements.”

The option includes support for Canada’s Common Alerting Protocol messaging profile called CAP-CP, the company stated, “incorporating robust multilingual messaging with English and French-Canadian text-to-speech capabilities,” which it called an industry first. Chief Operating Officer Jim Heminway stated that the systems offer Canadian CAP support to enable weather alerts from Environment Canada and civil alerts from local authorities via the NAAD infrastructure.

“Our products are the first to offer multiple ‘voices’ for text-to-speech generation in both English and French-Canadian,” it quoted him saying.

The company’s new Canadian module supports the Canadian CAP Profile, including Canada’s Standardized Geographical Classification codes, event types, multiple languages, digital signatures and other features for broadcasters and emergency managers in that country.

DASDEC and One-Net users can opt to distribute alerts in English, French or both, with display of text accompanied by synthetic speech for each dialect. The module has further features that the company said are particularly helpful to cable and IPTV operators.