[CAP] CAP-based Digital EAS goes national

[Art Botterell]

Public TV stations get some political top-cover and DHS gets a  
national alerting network in a hurry. According to todays announcement:

> Today, the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS) and the  
> Department of Homeland Securitys Federal Emergency Management  
> Agency (FEMA) tested Phase Two of the Digital Emergency Alert  
> System (DEAS). The project confirmed how the Department of Homeland  
> Security can improve and broadcast public alerts and warnings  
> during times of national crisis through the use of local public  
> televisions digital television broadcasts... The event, which took  
> place at Washingtons local public television station WETA in  
> Arlington, VA., was combined with simultaneous events at several  
> public television stations across the country who participated in  
> the pilot.

These digital emergency broadcasts have several things going for  
them. First off, the enormous bandwidth of those powerful digital  
transmitters means the new EAS can provide much more than a brief  
audio message and a cryptic on-screen crawl it can include live or  
recorded video, multiple simultaneous languages, maps, signing for  
the hearing-impaired as much information as government officials can  
generate in a hurry.

And because theyre based on the open Common Alerting Protocol, the  
same message that triggers multimedia over broadcast television can  
also activate targeted warning systems with a precision down to an  
individual city block depending, again, on the warning officials  
ability to be that precise. Not just cellphones think billboards and  
smoke-detectors and wristwatches, too.

Even though the initial PR stresses the high-concept aspects of TV  
and cellphones, this is actually the launch of an entirely new  
approach to public warning no longer based on a broadcast-era  
missiles inbound system designed to reach the widest possible  
audience, but instead on an Internet-age platform capable of  
personalization and location-based delivery of relevant, carefully  
targeted alerts to precisely the people who care.

Still, Botterells Second Law holds that The Problem is at The  
Input. This new delivery technology, and the heightened public  
expectations it will foster, will mean hightened demands on public  
officials (and private-sector entities, too) to issue precise and  
specific warnings in time to make a difference. More on that  
challenge later

- Art

PS - The link to the APTS announcement and other comments are on the  
incident.blog at <http://www.incident.com/blog/>.