[EAS] The words we use

[Sean Donelan]

On Wed, 6 Sep 2017, Ed Czarnecki wrote:
> The EAS vendors really didn't touch the cargo pants per se.  We came to 
> a fairly collegial discussion about which pockets in the pants needed to 
> be used to comply with the Part 11 rules, and that fostered some decent 
> level of interoperability across vendors and implementations.

Vendors are usually don't care since they want the sale, regardless. 
The best customer can describe what they want in sufficient detail, and 
have rational expectations for delivery.  Customers which constantly 
change their mind, or unreasonable expectations are challenging.

1. A written list of functional requirements.

A secret set of requirements, which no one can see aren't useful. 
Constantly changing requirements aren't useful. An indeterminate set of 
requirements aren't useful. A kitchen sink list of inconsistent or 
conflicting requirements aren't useful.

Functional requirements are generally written by the customer, i.e. 
the President (or designated representative, probably NSC or OMB) and 
FEMA, NOAA and FCC for national alerts.  For state and local public 
alerts and warnings, the written list of requirements would come from 
state and local government agencies which issue public alerts and 
warnings; and so forth.

2. A written concept of operations.

A CONOPS is not a list of requirements. A CONOPS is not a protocol 
specification.  S.A.M.E. is a transmission protocol, not a CONOPS. 
CAP/XML is a transport protocol, not a CONOPS.

For interoperability reasons, CONOPS are generally written by all the 
stakeholders involved in the system. I.e. Alert originators, alert 
distributors, system developers, public interest groups, etc.

The original Part 11 in 1994 had pieces of a CONOPS.  But the FCC has 
deleted most of the CONOPS over the years.  The EAS Operating Handbook 
also had part of the CONOPS, but the CONOPS were deleted in the last 
revision. The remenents of Part 11 contains a bunch of conflicting 
statement added as new types of mass media technology was added 
(satellite, IPTV, etc), a partial protocol (S.A.M.E) description, some 
testing rules, and a general statement that SECCs will figure it out.

Without a written list of requirements, and a written CONOPS, is anyone 
surprised when there is confusion?