Providers Urge Caution on Revising Rules for Emergency Alerts

Providers signaled a note of caution in response to letters from FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel asking the nation’s nine largest providers of wireless emergency alerts about sending alerts in languages beyond English and Spanish (see 2302140059). “If alert originators and FEMA originate and hand off multilingual alert information in a format consistent with Commission rules and relevant technical standards, Verizon could support them,” the carrier said, posted Tuesday in docket 15-91. Revisions in the alerting process “will require collaboration and consensus among stakeholders responsible for originating, delivering and presenting alerts to consumers, and a feasible period of time to incorporate the new capability into networks and handsets,” Verizon said. “Any modifications to the current, broadcast-based model of WEA must be made under structured conditions and rigorously hashed out through technical standards bodies, otherwise the FCC risks fragmenting a well-functioning international alerting system,” AT&T said: “Further, the more significant the modification, the less likely that current and legacy handsets will be able to support it.” T-Mobile urged the FCC to work with its Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) and the ATIS Wireless Technologies and Systems Committee (WTSC) on any changes. “With regard to potential modifications to the WEA system and WEA-capable wireless devices referenced in your letter, T-Mobile supports CSRIC and WTSC evaluating whether these solutions are compatible with the cell-broadcast technology that underpins the successful WEA system,” the company said. “While technical evaluations about the issues raised in your letter are on-going” the FCC and FEMA “should encourage alert originators to use the embedded link capabilities of WEA to ensure that emergency information is accessible to as many language communities as possible,” T-Mobile said. The FCC must “engage device manufacturers to effectively enhance WEA messaging,” C Spire said. The company “is not aware of existing machine translation technologies that are sufficiently reliable for use in emergency situations,” it said: “To make such functionality a reality, C Spire believes that the FCC must initiate a proceeding prompting a designated standards body, … vendors, and device manufacturers to develop standards for such technologies.” Google Fi said as an mobile virtual network operator it “relies upon underlying network partners to provide WEA capabilities. The network partners push WEA notifications directly to Fi users without any modification by Google Fi.”