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FEMA “IPAWS” Integration And Demonstration At NAB 2019

FEMA “IPAWS” Integration and Demonstration at NAB 2019

AWARN and ATSC 3.0 will integrate seamlessly with the FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS.)

AWARN will be on display in the FEMA booth during the 2019 NAB show.

Alerts generated by state, regional, or local authorities already trigger limited broadcast and text alerts to be received by consumers. The addition of AWARN Emergency Alerts means that devices equipped to receive AWARN signals can be easily triggered by IPAWS to display video, photos, audio, and text alerts to a variety of enabled devices.

Update On Advanced Alerting To FCC Chairman

Update on Advanced Alerting to FCC Chairman

On March 21, 2019, the undersigned met with Chairman Ajit Pai and Alexander Sanjenis, acting media advisor, to provide an update on the Advanced Warning and Response Network (AWARN), which utilizes the ATSC 3.0, Next Generation Television (“Next Gen TV”) broadcast transmission standard. AWARN Alliance Executive Director John Lawson described the evolution of the user experience (UX) design for AWARN advanced emergency alerts using Next Gen TV.

To improve over initial prototypes, the Alliance assembled a team of experts in social science, television design, and emergency management facilitation. In partnership with leading emergency managers, they conducted workshops and formative usability testing over September and October 2018 in Riverside, California, Maricopa County, Arizona, and New York City.

Participants included emergency managers and other public safety officials from multiple jurisdictions, who collectively are responsible for disseminating alerts to over 40 million people. The resulting UX has been utilized for new alerting use cases produced in association Ex Parte Notice: AWARN Briefing with Chairman Pai Page 2 with News-Press & Gazette Company’s KEYT-TV in Santa Barbara, California and the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management.

The scenarios are based on an actual “debris flow” event on February 2-3 that forced a mandatory evacuation and closed the 101 Highway. The new UX and use cases will be demonstrated at the NAB Show 2019 next month. Lawson also discussed ATSC 3.0 alerting’s potential as a tool for localized emergency alerts for streaming media, which is the subject of recent legislation, ATSC 3.0 use cases for connected vehicles, and potential synergies between AWARN and Wireless Emergency Alerts.

Lawson also briefed the Chairman on the current membership of the Alliance and efforts to expand the membership base for its voluntary advanced emergency communications mission.

As one of the original joint petitioners for Next Gen TV approval, Lawson expressed his gratitude on behalf of the AWARN Alliance for the Chairman’s continued support for the voluntary transmission of Next Generation Television and advanced alerting by local broadcasters.

 

DHS S&T Directorate Report On Alerting Tactics Includes AWARN As A Promising Future Alerting Technology.

DHS S&T Directorate Report on Alerting Tactics Includes AWARN as a Promising Future Alerting Technology.

The purpose of this Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) Report on Alerting Tactics (Report) is to provide recommendations on effective combinations of alerting tactics for various incident types based upon lessons learned from practitioners. This report examines: ● Nationwide alert originator best practices for reaching communities; ● Effective combinations of current and emerging alerting tools and practices to improve overall public response; and ● Considerations for integrating future technologies (e.g. advanced sensor alerting) and technology platforms (e.g., Next Generation Television (Next Gen TV)) to address current alerting gaps and challenges.

Read the FULL REPORT

 

NY Times: ‘Presidential Alert’ Goes To Millions Of Cellphones Across The U.S.

NY Times: ‘Presidential Alert’ Goes to Millions of Cellphones Across the U.S.

At 2:18 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, Nov 7, 2018, cellphones across the United States emitted the ominous ring of an emergency presidential alert.

It was the first nationwide test of a wireless emergency alert system, designed to warn people of a dire threat, like a terror attack, pandemic or natural disaster.

“THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System,” it read. “No action is needed.”

Read the full article here

TVTechnology: AWARN To The Rescue

TVTechnology: AWARN To The Rescue

Advanced emergency warning is on the way thanks to a 3.0 commitment from major broadcasters
Advanced emergency warning is on the way thanks to a 3.0 commitment from major broadcasters. Call it coincidence. Call it synchronicity. Call it whatever you want, but today three items crossed my desk that left me shaking my head.
First, Reuters’ Brian Snyder reported in “Lack of power, phones hampering rescue efforts after Hurricane Michael,” that hundreds of volunteers from Texas had headed to Florida to help locate more than 1,100 people—mostly in Panama City— who have gone missing following Hurricane Michael.Read the full article here >
The ATSC 3.0 Emergency Alert: A Boon For Communities And Local TV Stations (VIDEA Corporate Blog)

The ATSC 3.0 Emergency Alert: A Boon for Communities and Local TV Stations (VIDEA Corporate Blog)

It happens after so many disasters: questions about the performance of emergency alert systems. Victims often complain that alerts came too late or not at all. In California’s catastrophic Camp Fire, the Cal OES State and Fire rescue chief told WNCT, “We need a communications system, not just alert and warning, that is resilient and reliable for not only the public but for us in public service.”

Read the full article here >

Scientific American: How Will Trump’s Emergency Text Alerts Work?

Scientific American: How Will Trump’s Emergency Text Alerts Work?

By Dina Fine Maron on September 20, 2018

Responding to fears of an imminent Soviet nuclear attack, in 1951 Pres. Harry Truman set up a national system enabling the president to quickly notify the public of an impending national security threat via a cross-country relay chain of AM radio stations. It used characteristic blaring warning tones and became a precursor of the Emergency Alert System still in use today. “There are certain stations across every market that listen for those tones and then retransmit the alert to other stations in their market,” says John Lawson, an emergency alert expert who has advised the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on its modern warning systems.

Read the full article here >

TVTechnology: Hurricane Florence In A 5G World

One can only hope that wireless companies and broadcasters put aside turf wars for the sake of public safety
Oct 16, 2018

COWS and COLTS and Goats, oh my! No Dorothy, this isn’t Oz. It’s the Carolinas and Georgia as Hurricane Florence bore down on its way to landfall.

An interesting article by Angela Moscaritolo in PC Magazine online, “How Mobile Carriers Are Responding to Hurricane Florence,” described the steps carriers like Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile were taking to prepare for the aftermath of the hurricane.

She wrote: “…Verizon said it’s readying a fleet of mobile equipment—including Cells on Wheels (COWS), Cells on Light Trucks (COLTS), and generators on a trailer (Goats)—which can be rolled into hard-hit areas in need of extra network capacity.” The other carriers were taking similar steps, the article said.

Read the full article here >

CTA Joins AWARN Alliance to Boost Advanced Emergency Alerting

WASHINGTON, DC, July 18, 2017 – The Consumer Technology Association (CTA)™ is joining broadcasters, technology companies, and public safety agencies to develop and deploy the Advanced Warning and Response Network (AWARN), the world’s most advanced emergency alerting system, as part of the shift to Next-Generation television.

By leveraging the powerful new features of Next-Gen TV, the AWARN Alliance is creating a system that can deliver geo-targeted, rich-media emergency messages to a wide range of enabled consumer devices, including 4K Ultra HD television sets, tablets, smart phones, and connected cars. AWARN alerts will provide a major upgrade to the alerting systems available to the American public today.

Television broadcasters and consumer technology companies are planning for the voluntary adoption of Next Gen TV transmission, based on the ATSC 3.0 technical standard, pending approval by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

“Having CTA assume a leading role in the AWARN Alliance is a major step forward for advanced emergency alerting. CTA represents the device makers that are essential to creating the Next Gen TV ‘ecosystem’ that is the backbone for delivering the new alerts. CTA also brings enormous technical and operational know-how in helping us create the voluntary roadmap to an end-to-end system,” said John Lawson, executive director of the AWARN Alliance.

“The AWARN Alliance represents the market-based innovation that CTA embraces,” said CTA President and CEO Gary Shapiro. “CTA and the Alliance have already joined forces with the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) in requesting the FCC adopt minimal new rules for the voluntary implementation of Next Gen TV. We are happy to extend that support to help bring to life one of the key public benefits of Next Gen TV: advanced emergency alerting with AWARN.”

Next Gen TV was launched in South Korea on May 31 and is on track for initial launches in the U.S. in the 2018-19 timeframe, assuming that the FCC rulemaking concludes this year as expected.

Examples of the rich media alerts enabled by the AWARN system include photos, surveillance video, storm tracks, inundation maps, evacuation routes, airborne chemical plume models, and safety instructions. The system also can provide shelter locations, hospital wait times, and other recovery information after a disaster, even if cellular networks and the electric grid are down. In addition, the system can deliver Blue Alerts and safety information such as highway hazards.

The AWARN Alliance membership includes commercial and public broadcasters who reach over 85 percent of U.S. households, the National Association of Broadcasters, LG Electronics, the Interactive Television Alliance, and a growing number of U.S. and Korean technology companies and service providers.

A new AWARN Advisory Committee of major alert originators was just announced. The Committee includes The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the National Weather Service, and the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials.

CTA will collaborate with the AWARN Alliance and Advisory Committee in the second half of the year to focus on technical and operational details of the advance alerting system in preparation for the U.S. launch of Next Gen TV products and services.

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Members of the AWARN Alliance, as of July 18, 2017

Broadcasters (Commercial)

Capitol Broadcasting Company

Pearl TV*

Sinclair Broadcast Group

Broadcasters (Public)

Kentucky Educational Television

KPBS/California State University-San Diego

UNC-TV/University of North Carolina

WKAR/Michigan State University

WNET/New York

Technology Companies

LG Electronics/Zenith

Lokita Solutions/DigiCap

ONE Media

Monroe Electronics/Digital Alert Systems

Triveni Digital

Associations

Consumer Technology Association

Interactive Television Alliance

National Association of Broadcasters

Service Providers

AEA Implementation Team (ATSC)

Convergence Services, Inc.

MHz Networks

Wiley Rein, LLC

* Pearl TV is a business organization of U.S. broadcast companies whose membership, comprising more than 220 network-affiliated TV stations, consists of nine of the largest broadcast companies in America including: Cox Media Group, the E.W. Scripps Company, Graham Media Group, Hearst Television Inc., Meredith Local Media Group, Nexstar Media Group, Raycom Media, and TEGNA, Inc.

KBS UHD Broadcasting

KBS will usher in an era of ultra-high-definition quality terrestrial broadcasting starting in May. The use of domestically developed new devices and technology has attracted keen international attention.

Trial broadcasts began last month ahead of the formal launch of an ultra-high-definition television service scheduled for this May. The drama “Descendants of the Sun” and special documentaries are airing on the UHD channels of KBS 1 and 2 TV. An international conference was held to introduce the UHD broadcasting industry to Korea’s technology at its center. Key U.S. broadcasting industry figures attended and showed great interest in Korea’s UHD terrestrial broadcasts.

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