WASHINGTON—EAS participants who are not able to update to the IPAWS certificate that was released on Oct. 28 by the applied deadline of Nov. 8 will not turn into the proverbial pumpkin when the clock strikes midnight, according to a Public Notice from the FCC.

In the notice from the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the FCC, it was revealed that there are specific guidelines regarding equipment readiness that will allow EAS participants to continue to operate without the impacted, required equipment for a period of 60 days after the Nov. 8 deadline.

The issue of this public notice came after FEMA and some EAS participants expressed concern over the time frame from when the update was made available and the deadline that was set, saying that it was not sufficient time. As a result, the FCC issued the public notice to inform EAS participants about Section 11.35(b) of the commission’s rules, which allow for operations to continue “without the defective equipment pending its repair or replacement for 60 days without further FCC authority.”

As a result, EAS participants unable to make the IPAWS update prior to Nov. 8 will have until Jan. 7, 2020, to do so. In the event that they are not able to meet that deadline, an informal request for additional time must be submitted to the FCC and explain what steps have been taken, the alternative procedures being used while equipment has been defective and when the defective equipment will be repaired or replaced.

The update, and the subsequent operation without proper equipment in the situation of an extension, only applies to Common Alerting Protocol-formatted alerts distributed by IPAWS; EAS participants must still monitor, receive and process legacy EAS alerts formatted in the EAS protocol.

More information can be found in the FCC’s official Public Notice.

WASHINGTON — A new report from a working group of the FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) lays out a new vision for alerting the public in times of emergency and explores how the new ATSC 3.0 television standard can play a major role.

“The ATSC 3.0 (AKA Next Gen TV) standard holds the potential to not only vastly improve the broadcast television viewing experience and expand programming opportunities, but also enhance emergency communications capabilities and create new operational capabilities for broadcast stations,” it says.

The report, “Comprehensive Re-imagining of Emergency Alerting,” identifies three ways the Next Gen TV standard supports distribution of emergency information, including EAS support, advanced emergency services, such as Advanced Emergency Alerting (AEA), and CAP (Common Alerting Protocol) relay via 3.0’s native IP transport capability.

[Read: Public TV Raises Concern Over Possible WEA Enhancement]

The standard’s support for advanced emergency information services offers “a powerful tool” to target any type of emergency information beyond typical emergency alerts to TV viewers. “This is an informational service capable of conveying a broad range of urgent information bulletins and updates to targeted audiences,” the report says.

When it comes to Advanced Emergency Alerting, 3.0 offers broadcasters a way to reach fixed, mobile and portable consumer devices with audience-targeted messages, alerts flexible enough for nearly any form of emergency information, location-targeted alerts, support for multimedia content such as graphics, photos, maps and video, alert updates, multilingual messaging and a wake-up signal to awaken receivers in standby or sleep mode, it says.

The report notes that 3.0 deployment is voluntary and that the working group expects EAS “to continue to provide its essential functions for national and local public alert and warning.” It envisions 3.0-based alerting as “a value-added function from television broadcasters.”

Among the other topics covered in the document is the role PBS and local public television stations play in helping to protect communities by datacasting to deliver information to individuals and first responders.

The report lays out the main features of PBS-WARN, which takes advantage of the nationwide public TV interconnection system to provide for a nationwide emergency alerting network that serves as a redundant backup path for the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) C interface, which is technologically diverse from the Commercial Mobile Service Provider’s primary WEA gateway.

The document describes various instances of public broadcasters partnering with first responders in different locales to enable responders to send information and video via datacasts in emergency situations. Instances noted in the report include OEAS Public Alertnet with ties to all eight Ohio public TV licenses and their 12 stations, as well as other examples in Alabama, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada and Texas.

The working group’s report notes public TV stations choosing to deploy Next Gen TV will be able to provide even more robust emergency alert and communications service to first responders and the public. For example, 3.0 will allow them to operate more efficiently in terms of TV bandwidth usage, which could allow additional Common Alert Protocol feeds of national, regional and statewide data pertaining to alerts.

“Because PBS has already implemented an intersection of traditional broadcast and cellular technologies through the nationwide PBS-WARN system, we believe that public media has shown itself [to] be an ideal vehicle for projects which explore alerting and the intersection of the next generations of traditional broadcast (ATSC 3.0) and Cellular Mobile Service (5G),” says the report.

America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) issued a statement July 19 lauding the report. “The extraordinary technological achievement of ATSC 3 will enhance public safety communications and interoperability capabilities for law enforcement. Public television is already experimenting with the new services this broadcast standard makes possible,” says Patrick Butler, APTS president and CEO.

The report is available on the FCC website.

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LYNDONVILLE, N.Y. — As providers of Emergency Alert System/Common Alerting Protocol equipment, Monroe Electronics — and its Digital Alert Systems subsidiary — are advising users of their OneNet and DASDEC EAS/CAP systems to download the latest Integrated Public Alert and Warning System Certificate Authority (CA) credentials file.

Users must install these new digital CA credentials, recently issued by The Federal Emergency Management Agency — the administrator of IPAWS — in order to replace the previously issued version, which is set to expire on June 24.

Maintaining the most recent CA credentials is essential to ensuring that OneNet and DASDEC EAS/CAP encoders and decoders continue to operate properly. These devices use these digital certificates to validate the authenticity of IPAWS sourced Common Alerting Protocol alerts.

IPAWS users who fail to update their equipment before June 24 could see the error message: “Event Log: Digital Signature VERIFICATION ERROR : Signer UNTRUSTED! Check for correct CAP decoder CA file.;”

This is because FEMA uses digital CA certificates to create a “chain of trust between Emergency Alert System devices and the IPAWS servers.” According to FEMA IPAWS is an internet-based system that enables federal, state, and local authorities to issue critical public alerts and warnings. It’s accessed through software that meets IPAWS system requirements.

“We have been advised there will be several certificate and policy changes through the end of 2018 that will necessitate some certificate updates during this period,” said Ed Czarnecki, senior director of strategy and government affairs for Monroe Electronics and Digital Alert Systems.

Czarnecki added, “We’re constantly evaluating and updating our systems to stay in step with IPAWS, and since assisting customers is our top priority, we are actively working on new methods of managing government certificates with an improved path forward.”

All OneNet and DASDEC customers using the IPAWS system must have the latest digital certificates in place to assure the validity of the communications chain of trust, which prevents a “man in the middle” attack by only processing the messages that are authenticated through the IPAWS system.

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