Next Step Unclear as Federal Agencies Ask FCC to Include Multimedia in WEAs
The National Weather Service asked the FCC to require inclusion of multimedia content in wireless emergency alerts, joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which made a similar request last week (see 1805240035). FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is coming under increasing pressure to address multimedia content, but wireless and public safety officials said Pai doesn't appear to have decided how to proceed. Comments were due last week on a Public Safety Bureau notice to update the record (see 1803280029) on the feasibility of carriers including multimedia content in WEAs.
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Big City Emergency Managers (BCEM) hopes the FCC will require inclusion of multimedia content but hasn’t been told it will, Executive Director Ron Prater told us Tuesday. “It's an important piece to the WEA puzzle.” A public safety official agreed the FCC’s course is unclear.
“I question whether multimedia is actually necessary given that a text, in and of itself, efficiently delivers relevant, detailed, and comprehensive notice and instructions,” said a former FCC spectrum official. “I would imagine the commission would have to have solid data demonstrating unequivocally that including multimedia, together with the risk that the increase in data would crash the network, would significantly improve the process.” The FCC didn't comment.
“WEA is proven to deliver timely, life-saving emergency information,” said Matt Gerst, CTIA assistant vice president-regulatory affairs. “Alert originators can send multimedia content today by including ‘clickable’ links in WEA messages. We continue to work with the FCC, FEMA and alert originators to explore additional enhancements.”
The NWS said wireless alerts should keep up with wireless technology as it evolves. “WEA should take advantage and leverage the device’s built-in capabilities to render additional life-saving information in graphical, audio, or disability friendly formats,” the NWS said Tuesday in docket 15-91. “For example, short videos or other accessible content demonstrating protective action-taking (e.g. seek shelter, move to higher ground, etc.) could be built into the WEA application and rendered upon request by the recipient.”
The BCEM, the National Emergency Management Association and the International Association of Emergency Managers also called for action in a filing posted Tuesday. “The nation’s WEA system remains astonishingly behind universally adopted consumer technology,” they said. “Having an image can mean the difference between action and non-action.” They cited the New York City 2016 Chelsea bombings in which police sought the public's help in identifying the perpetrator, but the alerts could only ask the public to go elsewhere for a photo. “Less than half did,” the emergency managers said. “More recently was the use of WEA during the 2017 Hurricane Season. Showing expected inundation areas and maps during large flooding events such as Hurricane Harvey could have shown where hazards were more easily than trying to describe a location in a text-based message. Images can show the protective actions rather than trying to explain them.”
APCO Tuesday called for inclusion of multimedia information in alerts. “The Commission should encourage participating service providers to upgrade WEA systems in a manner that eliminates disparities between what’s available to consumers and what’s available to WEA alert originators,” APCO said. “Arguments that the WEA system was not designed for certain capabilities should have no bearing on whether to incorporate capabilities that already exist in wireless networks.”