Alerting FNRPM Expected to Be Approved With Few Changes by Commissioners

An FCC Further NPRM examining numerous enhancements for wireless emergency alerts is expected to be approved with limited tweaks at the commissioners' open meeting Thursday (see 2303300070), agency and industry officials said. Other wireless items, including receiver principles, are expected to be approved with minimal changes.

CTIA and the Competitive Carriers Association separately sought changes to the WEA draft, which proposes some enhancements, including that alerts be made available in the 13 most commonly spoken languages in the U.S. other than English. It proposes to enable alerting authorities to send thumbnail-sized images through WEA “which would be particularly beneficial in the context of AMBER Alerts” and allow authorities to send links to “location-aware maps.” The draft also proposes new reporting requirements on WEA availability and performance. An industry lawyer said carriers hope for tweaks, but it’s not clear many changes are in the works.

CTIA emphasized that WEAs have been successful. “To ensure the continued success of the WEA system, CTIA urges the Commission to proceed cautiously before adopting requirements that might impact the ability of providers to deliver timely and accurate alerts,” said a recent filing in docket 15-91: “As the Commission has previously observed, according to the 2021 Nationwide WEA Test Report, the test WEA was received by the overwhelming majority of respondents with a compatible device that opted into the test -- more than nine out of ten -- within two minutes of transmission.”

The FCC should look to the “considerable information available through both the FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council … and previous Commission proceedings, including last year’s WEA Performance Reporting” FNPRM, CTIA said. The FNPRM should “note that the existing WEA architecture is built upon the one-way cell-broadcast network that is separate from the communications path utilized by other voice and data traffic,” the group said. The FNPRM should also note changes to the WEA system to collect additional data from consumer devices raises “significant privacy concerns,” CTIA said. CTIA asked for language citing concerns the Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council raised in a recent report (see 2303210069).

CCA asked for more attention on issues facing smaller carriers. The FCC should include “additional questions related to the smaller carrier burden,” CCA said: “For example, the Commission could ask how it should define small- and medium-sized businesses in this context and whether it should make a distinction between nationwide and non-nationwide” providers. The FCC should also seek “more detailed input” on “how much additional time would reasonably be needed for compliance with the proposals in the FNPRM,” CCA said.

Earlier this year, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel asked the nation’s nine largest providers of WEAs about sending alerts in languages beyond English and Spanish. Most urged caution (see 2302280054).

Technology giving subscribers the ability to change the default language on their devices to a language of their choice “holds promise,” Verizon said then. It will also 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.