WASHINGTON—Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), ranking member of the House telecom and Internet subcommittee, today said the government should consider requiring mobile phone carriers and other communications service providers to provide emergency warnings to consumers, arguing the current scheme of voluntary participation may not be appropriate in light of the huge amount of federal dollars needed to overhaul the current, Cold War-era public warning regime.
“I think it is appropriate to revisit the voluntary nature of some pending proposals. As bad as an unfunded mandate would be, its seems to me equally problematic to spend potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money on a new alert system and a new office in the government somewhere to administer it, then indicate to industry that they don’t have to use it,” said Markey. “This would represent a funded non-mandate—the worst of all situations.”
Markey prefaced his remarks by noting the cell phone industry—which serves around 216 million subscribers—has concerns about a new federal mandate in terms of the cost and inconvenience associated with the necessary swap-out of handsets. Markey blasted Republican appropriators for cutting funding for emergency alert system upgrades.
The cell phone industry regards short message service—currently used to deliver Amber Alerts and other types of text communications—as a near-term solution, while noting the technology’s limitations. For the long term, cellular carriers envision a government-industry collaboration on technological, operational and administrative aspects of a comprehensive, permanent solution. Such a process was embraced for the rollout of wireless priority service.
The subcommittee heard from witnesses from industry, the Federal Communications Commission and the Maryland Sheriff’s Association. No one testified from the Department of Homeland Security, which recently received broader emergency alert powers from President Bush, or from the department’s Federal Emergency Management Agency.
However, representatives from DHS and the Wisconsin state government, including staff from Gov. Jim Doyle’s (D) office, were present Wednesday at a meeting in Appleton on the upcoming launch early next month of a pilot wireless emergency alert program based on cell broadcast technology. Cell broadcast has been endorsed in Holland, South Korea and other countries, and is being considered for adoption by the European Union. Einstein PCS, a GSM carrier of Airadigm Communications Inc., will be conducting cell-alert emergency warning testing.
