Posted by: Edward Czarnecki
Senior Vice President, SpectraRep

As a courtesy to our colleagues in the emergency management and broadcast industry, we’ll be providing occasional updates as to key developments in the countdown towards the migration of broadcast EAS to an Advanced CAP-based EAS.

As you recall, the FCC set the ball in motion when it decided in its Second Report and Order (2007) that all EAS participants (broadcasters and others) must have an ability to “accept” a CAP message within 180 days after FEMA issues its decision to accept CAP as the messaging standard for advanced EAS.

The pace of events has accelerated dramatically over the past few months, and below are a few events and milestones that we thought you should be aware of.

In July 2008, FEMA announced its intention to issue that decision in the 1st Quarter of 2009, by providing its CAP profile for IPAWS.

In May 2008, leading EAS manufacturers and advanced systems providers gathered together to create the EAS-CAP Industry Group (www.eas-cap.org) and issued its draft EAS-CAP profile on October 7th. This profile is intended to be a first step towards CAP data interoperability among advanced EAS equipment and system providers. SpectraRep was a leading participant in this Industry Group. The Group will be meeting with Federal agencies in the near future to hopefully coordinate speedy adoption of a final EAS-CAP profile.

At the same time, national level industry associations in the broadcast and emergency management field have begun working together to develop a comprehensive roadmap towards CAP implementation. SpectraRep was also asked to participate in these national level coordination efforts.

In sum, the transition towards next-generation CAP-based EAS is taking on speed. State broadcast associations, State Emergency Communications Committees and emergency managers should be monitoring this closely, as relatively near-term changes will likely be needed for EAS plans, as well as technologies being put into place.

Tags: Advanced CAP-based EAS, CAP, EAS, emergency management, FCC, FEMA, IPAWS, Second Report and Order, SpectraRep