Carriers Welcome Oct. 4 WEA/EAS Test; Broadcaster Tests Expected to Go Smoothly

Carriers welcome the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s plans for an Oct. 4 test of the wireless emergency alert system, with a nationwide emergency alert system test the same day. The FCC is examining possible changes to WEA, including requiring participating providers to ensure mobile devices can translate alerts into the 13 most commonly spoken languages in the U.S. aside from English, and to send thumbnail-sized images in WEA messages. Industry said some of the changes would be difficult to quickly implement (see 2307240045). Replies are due Monday in docket 15-91.

“Our focus will be to assess how the test fared with EAS participants and reached the public -- for example, whether EAS participants received the test message, whether they were able to transmit it to the public, and whether there were any problems with the audio or video of that transmission,” emailed an FCC spokesperson. “That information will help us identify any necessary improvements so that we can continue to strengthen emergency alerting.”

Emergency alerting officials expect the broadcast side of the October test to go relatively smoothly, though it happens to coincide with EAS equipment manufacturers rolling out updates to come into compliance with FCC rule changes. “There shouldn’t be a lot of drama,” said Ed Czarnecki, Digital Alert Systems vice president-global and government affairs.

Major wireless carriers noted a few glitches during localized, end-to-end WEA tests last year, but no major problems (see 2210030042). The first nationwide test of WEAs was in 2018 (see 1812210056).

Since the debut of WEAs in 2012, “the wireless industry has worked closely with" the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the FCC “and the broader alert originator community to test and enhance the life-saving capabilities of WEA messages,” emailed Scott Bergmann, CTIA senior vice president-regulatory affairs. CTIA was pleased to see the Public Safety Bureau’s approval of FEMA’s request for a nationwide test, he said: “This exercise, paired with post-test surveys, is a critical opportunity to assess the system’s performance while avoiding public alert fatigue. We look forward to supporting our members and government partners to ensure the test is successful.”

The Competitive Carriers Association also supports WEA tests “as a means for the FCC to maximize confidence in emergency alert performance,” a spokesperson emailed. “We hope these tests encourage more public safety authorities to implement the alerts as a valuable resource and demonstrate for public safety stakeholders that the functionality is reliable and well-administered,” the spokesperson said: “CCA members work to continually improve WEA capability to increase consumer benefits, and testing provides a simple, straightforward approach toward advancing WEA development.” That message is consistent with recent filings at the FCC.

“T-Mobile is committed to empowering its customers with effective tools to ensure their health, safety, and welfare,” T-Mobile said last month. “WEA is one such tool and has been extremely successful. The FCC has acknowledged the unparalleled success of WEA and T-Mobile has been voluntarily participating since the system was first launched a decade ago.” AT&T said WEA "has become one of our nation’s primary emergency alerting tools, used by hundreds of Alert Originators to send tens of thousands of life-saving emergency alerts to millions of wireless users with WEA-capable devices.”

The broadcast EAS test will be the first nationwide test using the internet-based common alerting protocol system (CAP) since 2018. Nationwide tests in 2019 and 2021 used the legacy daisy-chain system only, wherein broadcast stations spread the alerts to each other across the country by playing audio tones over their broadcast feed. No nationwide tests were conducted in 2020 or 2022.

October’s test will operate more like the way a real nationwide emergency alert would, using both the daisy chain and a signal sent via the internet-based Integrated Public Alert Warning System. Stations will be triggered to issue alerts by whichever system reaches them first. In the 2018 nationwide test, 95.5% of test participants received the alert. In the last nationwide EAS test in 2021, using only the daisy-chain, 89.3% of participants received the alert. Previous nationwide tests using the combined CAP and daisy-chain systems showed similar results to 2018.

In October, EAS equipment companies will be in the midst of updating their equipment to comply with a September 2022 order (see 2209270060. “Yes, we are in the middle of rolling our software updates, but it won't affect the efficacy of the test,” said Sage Alerting President Harold Price in an interview. Intended to improve the clarity and accessibility of EAS messages, one provision of the order changed the wording of the national alert message from “the Primary Entry Point system has issued a Nationwide Periodic Test” to say “the United States Government has issued a Nationwide Test of the Emergency Alert System." The change isn’t required to be in place until December, and not all broadcasters are likely to have received the updates by the test date. That means some TV viewers could see the old message on test day, Czarnecki and Price said.

The same FCC order instituted a requirement that EAS equipment prioritize the more information rich CAP alerts over the daisy chain version, but that requirement also doesn’t take effect until December and doesn’t apply to the nationwide alerts, Czarnecki said.

Broadcasters frequently test their emergency alerts, but EAS officials told us there's still value in testing the nationwide system. FEMA is focused on making sure the system for transmitting a nationwide emergency message is “bulletproof” and testing the whole thing is the only way to do that, said Roy Baum, State Emergency Communications Committee chair for Kansas. “The national test always gets people to look at their setups and logs, and draws attention to things they should be looking over,” Price said.

The National Association of State 911 Administrators shared news of the tests with its members but hasn’t heard much feedback, said Executive Director Harriet Rennie-Brown. APCO didn’t comment, though officials asked for WEA improvements (see 2211100074). The National Emergency Number Association didn’t comment.