The Society of Broadcast Engineers Jan. 24 told the FCC that the Emergency Alert System is beyond “band-aid” approaches in fixing its ills and must be reshaped using new system architecture and technology.
The SBE comments were filed in response to a commission Final Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on EAS. Reminding the commission that the society has long been involved with EAS and its predecessor, EBS, the trade organization proposed several steps, including:
- Creation of multipoint distribution links from government warning originators to Warning System Origination Points (WARSEPS), to eliminate the broadcast daisy chain
- Adoption of Common Alerting Protocol
- Elimination of broadcasters as an EAS origination source
- Federal funding and training for a national system
- Mandating electronic devices to have a warning capability.
Creation of EAS performance standards
As part of its filing, the society recommended that the United States first needs a strategy to warn the population of emergencies, like that presented in the Oct. 25, 2004, comments of the Partnership for Public Warning.
With such a strategy in place, one federal agency should manage and coordinate warning responsibilities, including EAS. According to the filing, the FCC should have a role in this agency to coordinate compliance issues.
The society urged the commission to mandate the “E-Chip” for digital receivers. According to the filing, the E-Chip would make the issue of voluntary or mandatory compliance “almost moot in the digital broadcasting domains.”
Another benefit of the E-Chip approach is taking warnings out of the main program stream, which would remove much of the “testing and other duties” that currently hinder the willingness of broadcasters to comply voluntarily.
For more information, visit www.sbe.org.
