Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr, in a blog post, says the FCC is beginning to address public safety as part of its Build America Agenda. He says, “In three weeks, we will vote to begin a ground-up re-examination of the Emergency Alert Systems (EAS). EAS sends life-saving information using TV and radio outlets, and our Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) distribute the emergency notices we
receive on our mobile phones. With underlying frameworks that are 31 and 13 years old respectively, we think it’s time to explore if structural changes to these systems are needed, with an eye towards making sure we are leveraging the latest technology to save lives. Similarly, we will also vote to initiate a review of our system for collecting real-time data on network outages and restoration during and after major disasters. Since its inception in 2007, our Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) has proven to be a valuable tool for collecting actionable information to help with recovery efforts. While the DIRS reports are valuable, they can be time-consuming to produce, drawing resources away from responding to an ongoing disaster. The Commission will vote on reforms to streamline DIRS to make sure that its benefits outweigh its burdens. We’ll close our August meeting by removing unnecessary regulations and injecting common sense across the Commission’s policies—critical features to streamline the implementation of our Build America Agenda.” See the full blog post here.
