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FCC Issues Decisions in Petitions Seeking CMAS Deadline Waiver
8/8/2012
WASHINGTON: The Federal Communications Commission has issued decisions on commercial
mobile service (CMS) providers’ petitions seeking waivers of the deadline to be
able to receive and transmit Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) alerts to
subscribers.
On Aug. 3, the FCC posted an order on its website—which was adopted the same
day—listing its decisions to the petitions filed by CMS providers who want to
participate in the CMAS, but who sought waivers from the April 7, 2012 deadline
to have the ability to transmit those alerts to subscribers.
Individual petitions requesting a waiver from the deadline were filed by the
Rural Cellular Association; the Rural Telecommunications Group, MetroPCS
Wireless Inc., Element Mobile, Panhandle Telecommunications System Inc. and
American Messaging Services LLC.
A joint petition was filed by Cricket Communications Inc., Flat Wireless LLC
dba Clear Talk, Cincinnati Bell Wireless Inc. and nTelos Wireless in which the
petitioners claimed there were “a common set of facts and circumstances,
including a common timeline of events, to support each joint petitioner’s
request for a waiver,” the FCC said
The FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau granted the petitions
filed by MetroPCS Wireless Inc., and by the joint petitioners Cricket
Communications Inc., Cincinnati Bell Wireless Inc., Flat Wireless LLC dba Clear
Talk and nTelos Wireless.
The bureau denied the petitions filed by the Rural Cellular Association, the
Rural Telecommunications Group and the American Messaging Services LLC. Of those,
American Messaging’s petition was denied “without prejudice” and it can refile,
the FCC said.
All of the petitioners sought a wavier of the April 7 deadline in order to
complete contracts required for establishing a connection with the Federal
Emergency Management Agency’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning
System’s alert aggregator gateway. That includes negotiating a
memorandum of agreement and an interconnection security agreement,
FCC says.
The memorandum of agreement is between the carrier and FEMA, and establishes the terms governing the
management, operation and security of a connection between the carrier and
IPAWS for the delivery of CMAS alerts, the FCC said.
The interconnection security agreement is between the carrier and FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. That agreement addresses the security requirements for the virtual
private network that acts as the interface between the gateway used by the carrier
and the IPAWS’ gateway.
The two agreements have a test phase and a production phase, each
of which must be separately negotiated and executed. In addition, FEMA says the
test phase documents have a “notional timeline” for completion of about eight
weeks, and the production phase has a timeline of about seven weeks.
Petitioners sought a waiver of the April 7 deadline to have “a period of time
sufficient to complete the foregoing contractual processes and final CMAs
interface testing that FEMA and DHS require for any CMS provider to participate
in the CMAS,” FCC says.
Because of the time required to complete FEMA’s and DHS’ contracting and
interconnection negotiation processes, the Rural Cellular Association and the
Rural Telecommunications Group sought a “blanket waiver” on behalf of their
members or the wireless industry in general. ~ from Government Video
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