[EAS] Why we need Text-To-Speech

[Alex Hartman]

Clay hits one of the major issues, in that a "horse has already left the
barn".  It's out of the barn, through the gate, and several miles down the
road at this point.  And can't be called back without significant risk
(economic, operational, etc).

Product has already been designed (years ago in some cases), and shipped and
deployed (also years ago in cases).  Each manufacturer has made its own
design choices that make it too late to mandate a specific software module
for all makes and models of CAP EAS unit.  Quite simply, (1) one size will
not fit all, (2) much of this gear has already been deployed.

Ed,

With all due respect, the fatal flaw with this line of thinking is
that the proverbial cart is before the horse. Releasing a "draft"
product, with customers in line to buy it is not the fault of anyone
but the manufacturer, really. Knowing that the rules of the game would
change before the final draft and final adoption is pretty obvious and
made some contingencies beforehand for firmware/software updates
knowing that something like this could happen. However, both sides of
the fence to blame here. The FCC changed their minds *after* the timer
started to replace all the gear in the field. So i do see both sides.

I'm guilty of it as well. I have a 1 year old Sage Digital ENDEC. But
i purchased mine to replace a failing unit already in place. Instead
of spending the better part of $1k to fix it, i opted for replacement.

But i'm sure that 1 year old box can be updated to allow user
lexicons, right Harold? ;)

As for the one size does not fit all... a government mandate should be
a one-size-fits-all solution. Simple as that. Adding your own personal
touches to the devices seems like a waste if it's never used, right?
When it comes to "public safety" coming up with your own features that
don't work with other products seems to really show some arrogance and
even a lack of good judgement, yes?

--
Alex Hartman