[sbe-eas] PEP Stations

[Ed Czarnecki]

GMC = Governors Mandatory Carry (of EAS alerts), as suggested (without much
definition) in FCC part 11.55.

BWWG alternative = a generalized suggestion that what was needed was
"event-driven must carry" not "governor must carry."

There's a third acronym to toss into the discussion... "ECIG."  In response
to the general requirement originally suggested by the FCC in 11.55, the
manufacturing community (EAS-CAP Industry Group) developed CAP EAS
Implementation Guidelines that were subsequently adopted by both FEMA
(August 12, 2010) and the FCC (Jan 10, 2012).  The FCC adopted the ECIG
guidelines, except for the governors must carry provision (and text to
speech, but that's another kettle of fish).

These ECIG guidelines included an "event-driven" solution to the "governors
must carry" requirement in 11.55.  The ECIG Guidelines would have included
an true/false proposition in a CAP message (i.e. where "Must_Carry=True"
then that particular message would have simply overridden the filtering
settings so that it would go automatically to air.  

Notably, this ECIG must carry would have been used with preset event codes.
So, for example, an Amber Alert (CAE) or other urgent event code could be
tagged with a "must carry" flag.  Unfortunately, there appears to have been
a *lot* of misunderstanding on the CAP "mandatory carry" guidelines.  The
ECIG Implementation Guidelines were actually "event-driven" from the start,
but responding to the use case set by the FCC under 11.55 (which was the
"governor" part).

For what it's worth, the ECIG method could have still worked as a purely
event-driven approach for the must urgent of circumstances, by emergency
management and law enforcement authorities, designated in a state EAS plan.

ECIG did not delve into guidance on what circumstances would have justified
use of such a device override capability, as we felt it was out of scope of
our charter (i.e. a policy question, rather than a technology issue).  Nor
did we suggest guidance on how the ECIG "must carry" could have been
established in state EAS plans.  However, it bears noting that the
"governors designee" would have meant the emergency manager or law
enforcement (Amber Alerts) anyway. 

Edward Czarnecki, Ph.D.
Senior Director - Strategy, Development & Regulatory Affairs
Monroe Electronics, Inc. / Digital Alert Systems
ed.czarnecki at monroe-electronics.com
www.monroe-electronics.com
www.digitalalertsystems. com




-----Original Message-----
From: sbe-eas-bounces at sbe.org [mailto:sbe-eas-bounces at sbe.org] On Behalf Of
Tom Weber
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 5:49 PM
To: sbe-eas at sbe.org
Subject: Re: [sbe-eas] PEP Stations

"...GMC or the BWWG alternative."

Translation, please?  Too many acronyms!

Thanks,
Tom Weber
WISH / WNDY-TV
Indianapolis

--------------------------------------------------------


Message: 1
Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2012 18:47:10 -0800
From: "Clay Freinwald" <k7cr at blarg.net>
Subject: Re: [sbe-eas] Subject: Re:  PEP Stations
To: "'SBE EAS Exchange - a mail list for discussion about the
	Emergency	Alert	System and other emergency communication
issues.'"
	<sbe-eas at sbe.org>, 	<w2xj at w2xj.net>
Message-ID: <00de01cce479$9fb692e0$df23b8a0$@blarg.net>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"

Frankly, I feel the discussion we should be having should be about how to
get 100% participation by stations to air EAS messages that involve the
saving of lives in their area.  Especially since the FCC nixed GMC or the
BWWG alternative.

Clay
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