WASHINGTON—The Association of Public Television Stations and the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency said they completed the second phase of a pilot program to design a national digital platform to distribute emergency alerts to cell phones, personal computers and other devices.
“This project demonstrates how the capabilities of America’s public broadcasters can be utilized to dramatically enhance the ability of the President of the United States to communicate with the American public during a national crisis,” said John Lawson, president of APTS.
APTS said DHS-FEMA have committed $5 million by the end of next year to deploy the digital emergency system to 356 public TV stations.
“The current EAS has it roots in the Cold War, and still relies on technology from that era. You had to be watching one of the major networks or listening to a radio station to have a chance of receiving the alert. What we are announcing today is an alert system for the mobile, networked and digital America of the 21st Century,” said Lawson.
However, the selection of a technology to disseminate mass wireless warnings remains unclear.
Last Wednesday’s demonstration at public TV station WETA in Arlington, Va. largely focused on the capability of the digital emergency alert system platform, not the last-mile delivery of emergency messages.
The failure to overhaul the half century-old emergency alert system in the aftermath the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has become a political embarrassment for the Bush administration and Congress. President Bush recently signed an executive order shifting some emergency alert service powers to DHS.
The Federal Communications Commission, which has yet to rule on an emergency alert reform proposal from 2004, is responsible for writing emergency warning regulations and enforcing them as they relate to television, radio and cable TV operators. There has been speculation the FCC could vote on emergency alert reform at its Aug. 3 meeting.
The House and Senate have bills pending to modernize the emergency alert system to take advantage of wireless and other popular communications technologies.
While DHS has not officially endorsed a technology for emergency wireless alerts, the agency appears to be leaning toward a cell broadcast approach embraced by Holland, South Korea and others, but largely shunned to date by the U.S. mobile phone industry.
