[EAS] New EAS Forum posting: A vision for what to do now that the FCC has eliminated the GMC

[Richard_Rudman]

The Broadcast Warning Working Group (BWWG) was one of several Commenters in the proceeding pointing out that the FCC had to go above and beyond IPAWS certification to, as we said, assure that all approved EAS devices "play nice" together. 

Part of "playing nice" is playing by the same rules. In this case, we (the entry point stakeholders) had hoped for not only adherence to the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), but for common standards and methods to implement CAP.

When the Partnership for Public Warning (PPW) issued its reports that led to CAP, we said that we had to evolve the process of issuing warnings beyond the severe closed and non-proprietary limits of legacy SAME EAS. 

While there is certainly room for individual EAS product innovation, we need to remind the Commission that they must not forget the "user experience" in that all aspects of issuing CAP warnings should have to meet common standards for how they are heard or displayed on products in the hands of a public at risk.

This includes, to state the obvious, Text To Speech (TTS).

Question One: Is it time for a "time out" until the FCC performs the certification they promised to do in the Fifth Report and Order, and finds a way to get all those listed at < http://transition.fcc.gov/pshs/services/eas/vendors.html > on a common "user experience" footing for all aspects of Part 11?

Question Two: Is this too much to ask?

Richard Rudman
The BWWG

On Jan 18, 2012, at 10:38 PM, Rych Withers wrote:

> So we spent all this money on these new EAS boxes and they can't be used for
> TTS? Too bad there was no equipment certification process to test this
> issue.