[EAS] FCC NPRM on improving EAS just issued

[Sean Donelan]

On Mon, 1 Feb 2016, Richard_Rudman wrote:
> When I chaired the NAC before the FCC failed to renew its charter we 
>reached out well beyond broadcaster to the emergency management 
>community, the hearing impaired community, vendors, Federal partners, 
>cable, and IT experts.

I've worked with FACA groups from both the government side, as a Federal 
employee; and from the private sector side, as an industry representative.
FACA has a lot of rules to ensure advisory committees are objective and
transparent.  But in the end, the final report is written by the
members of the committee; not by other interested parties the committee 
may have consulted.

This NPRM combines questions about Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) and 
Emergency Alert System (EAS).  The cellular industry wanted to keep 
CMAS/WEA seperate from EAS, partially so they would exert more control of 
its technical and advisory groups.  NAB and CTIA have little lobbying wars 
about things on every NPRM.

In addition to this NPRM about EAS, there is also a seperate NPRM 15-91 
about WEA. It may be a good idea to read both NPRMs.

https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-proposes-enhancements-wireless-emergency-alerts
http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015/db1119/FCC-15-154A1.pdf

If the FCC re-establishes a standing advisory committee, instead of 
making it broadcaster EAS focused; its membership probably should be more 
like the former Media Security & Reliability Council and recognize the
cross-media impact of the various types of emergency public alerting.