The Federal Register has published a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM), issued by the FCC, seeking comment on proposed revisions to Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) rules that would leverage advancements in technology to improve WEA’s multimedia, multilingual and geo-targeting capabilities, as well as lessons learned from alert originators’ experience since WEA was initially deployed. Additionally, the FCC has proposed steps to improve the availability of information about WEA, both to empower consumers to make informed choices about the emergency information that they will receive, as well as to promote transparency for emergency management agencies and other WEA stakeholders. In September, the FCC adopted new rules pertaining to WEA concerning Spanish language message, increased message length, and embedded URLs in WEA messages. Comments on the recent FNPRM are due on or before Thursday, December 8, 2017 and reply comments are due on or before Monday, January 9, 2017.
