Geo-Targeted WEAs to Be on January Agenda, Pai Says

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is promising more precise geo-targeting of wireless emergency alerts, with a WEA proposal he said circulated Monday to be included on the Jan. 30 meeting agenda. Pai said Monday that wireless carriers in the WEA program delivering better geo-targeted alerts would encourage more use of the alerts during emergencies and lead to the public taking such alerts more seriously. The agenda is expected to be released Tuesday. CTIA, in a statement in response to Pai's announcement, said it backed the chairman's efforts to enhance the WEA system’s geo-targeting capabilities through device-based solutions, and the agency "should adopt new rules that are technically feasible along an achievable timeline.” Separately, in a docket 15-91 ex parte filing posted Monday, CTIA recapped meetings with aides to Pai and other commissioners at which it said device-based geo-targeting will take at least 36 months to implement after the effective date of new FCC rules. It said the kind of "fundamental shift" in WEA capabilities that such geo-targeting requires incudes new mobile wireless network and device standards, and the agency needs to adopt "a reasonable timeline" for achievement. It said testing new WEA enhancements with a prototype device using device-based geo-targeting methods could happen by the end of 2019. In a separate filing posted Monday, the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions Wireless Technologies and Systems Committee listed 15 standards that would need to be modified or developed for device-based geo-targeting. It said such standards work would take 12-18 months. And the Federal Emergency Management Agency said for geo-targeting alert messages, it saw little need for coordinate precision beyond the fourth decimal point of degree, which works out to about 11 meters or 36 feet. The agency said this doesn't conflict with efforts to have WEA-driven device-based geo-targeting with a one-tenth mile accuracy.