EAS Improvements Sought

Posted on October 4th, 2013 by

The FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, responsible for the first-ever nationwide EAS test in 2011, would like input from EAS “stakeholders” to address issues that remain from the nationwide EAS Test.  Earlier this year, the Bureau released the results of the 2011 test, concluding that EAS was “fundamentally sound”, but noting several problems that impeded the ability of some EAS participants from receiving and/or retransmitting the nationwide test.

 Comments are sought on the ability of equipment to recognize and process EAS “Header Code” elements, the timing of the release code, issues related to the location code, visual crawl and audio accessibility issues, national test event codes, and length of message impacts.  Comments are due October 23, 2013, with reply comments by November 7, 2013.  Electronic and paper comments are allowed.  The Bureau plans to make several recommendations for EAS improvements at the conclusion of this proceeding.  From there, the Media Bureau would have to implement those recommendations with respect to broadcasters.