The FCC is still investigating what happened when state emergency officials in Hawaii sent a false missile alert on January 13. The person who actually sent the false alert is not cooperating with the Commission’s investigation, Lisa Fowlkes, Chief of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, told lawmakers yesterday. “We hope he will reconsider,” she said.
Fowlkes, along with Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD), called the Hawaii incident “unacceptable.” She said what happened “appears to be the result of human error.” The state did not have a way to recall an alert; it does now. Hawaii changed its alerting protocol so two people are now needed to send an alert, she said.
Fowlkes and others testified during Thursday’s Senate Commerce Committee hearing on alerting, held to review what’s working and what isn’t in the nation’s Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) and Emergency Alert System (EAS). Thune said false alerts “create unnecessary panic” and undermine the integrity of an alerting system. “While we do not want to prevent authorized officials from communicating alerts to the public when they see fit, we must ensure that such officials are better trained,” he said.
Brian Schatz (D-HI) was home in Honolulu and received the false alert on his cell phone. He noted that state emergency officials quickly notified U.S. Missile Command that there was no real alert, “but didn’t tell the rest of us,” adding it took nearly 40 minutes to correct the error. “All of this was avoidable. States are not missile experts,” he said. Schatz plans to introduce a bill that gives the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security the authority to send such alerts, not a state. Several committee members, including Ed Markey (D-MA), agreed with the premise.
Both CTIA SVP Scott Bergmann, and NAB EVP/CTO Sam Matheny testified that WEA and EAS distribution systems worked as they were supposed to on that day. Bergmann noted that since WEA was authorized five years ago, over 33,000 WEA alerts have been delivered. “Now, as more than half of U.S. households are wireless only, WEA is more of a tool,” he said.
Today, WEA alerts can be targeted down to the cell tower level. The FCC is expected to vote next week to require carriers to implement geo-targeting, to further limit where an alert is delivered, down to the device level.
The geo-targeting implementation deadline is May 2019. Markey tried to get Bergmann to commit to an earlier implementation. Bergmann said carriers would do their best to beat the specified deadline.
Matheny said NAB hopes lawmakers won’t put regulatory barriers in the way as broadcasters implement next-gen television, or ATSC 3.0. The new technology has the ability to “wake-up” turned off TV sets and other video devices to deliver alerts. Many stations are upgrading their transmission system to ATSC 3.0, as they change channels for the repack.
Lawmakers didn’t get all the answers they wanted. The FCC’s authority only extends to alert distribution, not alert origination, which is done by individual states. Thune said FEMA was asked to participate in the hearing, but could not. He hopes they will when the committee holds a field hearing in Hawaii on alerting later this year.
By Leslie Stimson , Washington Bureau Chief, Inside Towers
January 26, 2018
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