FCC Summit on EAS

The Federal Communications Commission's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau hosted a Summit on Emergency Alert System (EAS). The summit was designed to discuss the current state of the nation's EAS and what is needed to transition to a more robust, next-generation alert and warning system. Derek Poarch, the chief of the FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (PSHSB) led the summit. The first panel, moderated by Tom Beers, chief of the Policy Division PSHSB, discussed the current state of the nation's EAS initiative. Discussions focused on failure points within the system and ways to improve testing protocols. The second panel was moderated by William Lane, chief engineer of the PSHSB, and discussed new technologies, possible policies and protocols that should be implemented to ensure compatibility between Federal implementation of the Common Alert Protocol (CAP) architecture and state government operations. Both panels provided a great deal of information and shed some insight on methods currently used in various cities, states and regions. The discussions were lively, as both moderators noted, and certainly will encourage additional discussion and idea exchange among the participants. An action item list for a follow-up was not presented, which could allow the process to become nothing more than an exercise to talk about the problem but not really provide any solutions or answers.
http://radiomagonline.com/currents/news/fcc-summit-on-eas-0519/