[EAS] FCC BLU Alert Proposal

[Sean Donelan]

On Sat, 17 Jun 2017, Clay Freinwald wrote:
> Regarding RMT's - In WaState the job of initiating ALL RMT's and actual
> messages rests with those that actually send Warning Messages.
> We rotate the duty between the State, Local Governments and NWS.

Of course, no one likes to be ordered what to do.  And "guidance" from the 
feds is sometimes rejected just because it comes from the feds. So federal 
agencies are reluctant to offer an opinion or guidance.

In a majority of state EAS plans, the only listed mechanisms for 
state/local officials to activate the EAS is by calling or faxing the 
primary broadcast station. The assumption was state/local officials didn't 
have (or couldn't afford) their own EAS equipment to initiate an alert.

That may just be out-of-date EAS plans, and may not be accurate.

IPAWS appears to be changing this.  If a state or locality wants to use 
IPAWS for Wireless Emergency Alerts, they must buy their own IPAWS alert 
console or subscribe to an IPAWS alert service provider.  So we are 
seeing more state/local alert activations directly from officials, 
without assistance from the primary broadcast station. The IPAWS 
"console" is often an add-on to the reverse-911/SMS notification 
software.

Good - more state/local officials able to directly issue alerts through 
IPAWS

Bad - less assistance creating an alert. the primary broadcast station 
effectively was an unpaid alert training consultant for local officials 
wanting to use EAS.

As states and localities move to direct-origination through IPAWS, we need 
to think how to replace some of those informal support channels. When a 
local police department called up the local primary station and asked to 
send an EAS alert for the July 4 parade closing Main St., the local 
primary broadcast station likely would have asked "Are you sure?"

With IPAWS, no one asks "Are you sure?"  And if there is no guidance, 
there is no followup.

Which brings us back to BLUE Alerts.  Law enforcement says they need a 
special code for BLUE alerts because law enforcement keeps using IPAWS/EAS 
for trivial emergency messages.  Maybe the issue isn't BLUE alerts, but 
the lack of training for law enforcement activating emergency alert 
systems for minor messages.  If law enforcement didn't use WEA/EAS for 
minor emergencies, then the public wouldn't tune out when law enforcement 
sends messages about significant incidents like blue alerts.