FCC Chairman Pai Proposes Rules to Improve Geographic Targeting of Emergency Alerts

Submitted by kgoughnour3 on January 25, 2018 - 10:43am
January 2018 - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been working to improve its response and readiness to wireless emergency alerts (WEA). To this end, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has released a proposal to improve geographic targeting of alerts to raise community awareness and encourage the use of WEA in crisis situations. Speaking of the proposal, Chairman Pai said, "When disaster strikes, it’s critical that Americans receive the information they need to stay safe. During the last few months, we’ve seen that Wireless Emergency Alerts are an important tool for quickly delivering warnings in times of emergency. Whether you are in the path of a hurricane or a wildfire, you can receive life-saving alerts on your mobile device.” 
 
The WEA Second Report and Order mandates that wireless providers deliver emergency alerts to targeted geographic areas, with no more than a 0.1-mile overlap over non-crisis coverage areas. Further, all emergency alerts must be retrievable and remain on the consumer device for at least 24 hours. This improved geographic targeting will take effect on November 30, 2019. The WEA Second Order on Reconsideration mandates that Spanish-language emergency alerts be expanded from 90 characters limitation to contain up to 360 characters, with a compliance deadline of May 1, 2019. 
 
The proposal also aims to help first responders more accurately and quickly target messages to populations in the impact zone through the improved geographic targeting. On this need, Chairman Pai said, "The most important feature of this proposal is the requirement that wireless carriers participating in the Wireless Emergency Alert program deliver alerts in a more geographically targeted manner. Emergency officials across America have told the FCC how important it is to better pinpoint these alerts to impacted communities.”
 
Further details on this proposal will be discussed at the Commission’s January 30th Open Meeting. A draft of the proposal is available at https://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2018/db0109/DOC-348630A1.pdf 
 
Source: Federal Communications Commission

Additional Information

Chairman Pai Proposes Improvements To Wireless Emergency Alerts
FCC Fact Sheet

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