[EAS] Furthermore re: Fire

[Botterell, Arthur@CalOES]

As a fresh-page approach I'd recommend careful consideration of the "Ohio Model."  Using donated bandwidth from the state's public TV stations and their statewide fiber interconnect, Ohio has set up a rapid last-mile dissemination of CAP alerts data over the public stations' generally pretty high-powered transmitters.

Let's think a moment about what that means.  First thing it represents is a modern digital State Relay Network.  Because it's native CAP all the way to the edge of the network, it opens up a whole raft of opportunities for intelligent alerting devices that simply aren't available once the alert has been dumbed-down into the SAME format.  I'm thinking of everything from opening firehouse doors and such for earthquake warnings to flashers, shakers and other customized user experiences for folks with access and functional needs.

And while EAS devices can consume the CAP fed over the datacast, its entirely possible for the TV station to disseminate an alert without interrupting it's own program(s).  Meanwhile, location-aware receiving devices can determine for themselves and their owners whether a particular CAP alert is relevant to them.  Which was really one of the most fundamental notions behind CAP, and one that's been overlooked in both EAS and WEA.

(An important side consideration is that people frequently have "locations of interest" other than where they physically are at any moment.  Maybe a child's school, maybe a business or plant location.  By disseminating the actual CAP alert it becomes feasible to use intelligent receiving devices to tailor their behavior to their individual owners.)

Not making any sort of commercial endorsement here... we're doing our own evaluation of the technology now... but I do think the Ohio system is, if not a model for everyone, then at least instructive as an example of the sort of thing that's possible once we start thinking outside the CONELRAD/EBS box.

Art