Creating the homeland security regime in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks also prompted a long, overdue re-examination of the nation’s emergency alert system. The warning system was created more than a half-century ago when mobile phones, the Internet and other communications technologies did not exist, and when a nuclear strike from the then-Soviet Union or one of its proxies was deemed the most pressing threat to the United States.
Today, with more than 200 million mobile-phone subscribers and roughly the same number of Internet users in the United States, policy-makers at the Federal Communications Commission, in Congress and the Bush administration realize citizens are being shortchanged by a largely voluntary emergency alert system limited to analog radio, television and cable TV in a digital, highly mobile world. But little progress has been made to reform emergency warnings.
The FCC, which has been collecting public comments and studying the issue for two years, is believed to be nearing a ruling to expand the EAS to wireless and other communications services not covered by existing regulations.
President Bush in June signed an executive order shifting some emergency warning responsibilities to the Department of Homeland Security. How DHS and the FCC will share and coordinate emergency warning duties remains unclear. DHS has been working with public TV operators, cell-phone carriers and others to develop a nationwide digital platform for emergency alert distribution by different communications service providers.
Some in Congress have been particularly critical of delays in modernizing the nation’s emergency alert regime as the fifth anniversary of 9/11 nears. Yet it is uncertain whether lawmakers will see fit to pass the Warning, Alert and Response Network Act championed by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) before they complete business for the year.
The wireless industry, which worked with government and moved comparatively swiftly to develop and implement wireless priority service after 9/11, remains concerned about liability and any federal mandate that could accompany emergency alert reform. Moreover, industry is nowhere close to an agreement on a long-term technology solution for an updated emergency alert system.
Wireless carriers regard short message service, or SMS, as the best bet for the near term. Cellular operators have said the public-private process used to establish wireless priority service protocols could serve as a model for a permanent fix to the antiquated emergency alert system.
Others are not waiting for the federal government to act. Einstein Wireless, a GSM mobile-phone operator in Appleton, Wis., is testing cell-broadcast emergency alert technology there. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is considering going in the same direction. The European Union also is contemplating whether to embrace and endorse cell-broadcast technology to alert citizens of dangers in the 25 member states.
