[EAS] Multilingual support for CAP messages

[Ed Czarnecki]

I'm a bit confused as to this question as well.  

Broadcasters must monitor all EAS sources, but only have to transmit the
EAN, NPT and tests.  Broadcasters may actually enjoy a good deal of
flexibility in terms of not carrying alerts at all, converting alerts into
news bulletins, voluntarily providing some multilingual support (if relevant
to their particular audience)...

Participating mobile operators must monitor their WEA sources, and transmit
ALL WEA alerts in a geotargeted manner - the cell phone subscriber
administers which alerts they want to opt into/out of (except for EAN).  WEA
enjoy little flexibility - the WEA message format is short (and changing
WEAs to longer or multipart messaging introduces all sorts of complications.
The WEA message is single language (and from what I'm reading, multilingual
support may also be severely challenging).

Another difference is that - while all broadcasters MUST participate in EAS
(which means procure an EAS box, and broadcast what alert they want), mobile
providers MAY optionally participate in WEA (its not mandatory).  Most
mobile operators do anyway.  And if they do participate in WEA, the work
they've had to do to bring WEA online was not trivial.

As an aside, I can now get WEA alerts on two smartphones and one smart
watch.  Both smartphones have an FM chip too (though I doubt I'd ever use
it).  My new smartwatch does not have an FM chip (ha!)  I'm looking forward
to the next WEA alert - with all these devices, I might end up being
vibrated off my desk chair LOL.  My cable TV in my office may carry an EAS
alert, as will various other alerting tools on my PC, etc...  And what will
happen in an actual emergency?  If I get an alert on all these platforms,
I'll just wander over to my 25 year old AM/FM radio an tune to the local
news station for the rest of the story.

If someone has limited English proficiency ... they just don't really have
effective access to any of these warning mechanisms.

-----Original Message-----
From: eas-bounces at radiolists.net [mailto:eas-bounces at radiolists.net] On
Behalf Of Sean Donelan

On Tue, 29 Mar 2016, Rod Zeigler wrote:
> I still say that forcing the wireless industry to meet the same 
> standards as broadcasters would be a huge step forward in the entire 
> alerting scheme.