Carriers Face Limits on Emergency Alerts on Mobile Phones, AT&T Says

Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) on cellphones should be a “bell ringer” service that alerts users to seek more information about imminent threats, AT&T representatives said in a call with officials from the FCC Wireless Bureau. “WEA is not a purpose-built alert system … and as such policymakers should accept the limitations inherent in the cellular system,” AT&T said in a filing posted in docket 15-91. “The carrier obligations of WEA can only be met by the native broadcast capabilities defined in the standard.” Carriers can offer longer warning messages through LTE, but doing so will take time, AT&T said. “The updated message length for WEA messages will require new handsets and it will take time to standardize, deploy in the core network, modify the interface to [the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System], and get quantities of handsets out to wireless users.” AT&T said that a message length of 280 characters does “seem achievable.”