Smarter Emergency Alerts

The Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (Bureau) is advising Commercial Mobile Service providers participating in Wireless Emergency Alerts of their obligation to support the following WEA improvements to the system by May 1, 2019:

Longer WEA messages (from 90 to 360 characters) on 4G LTE;
A new “Public Safety Messages”class of alerts;
Spanish-language alert messages;
Display of WEA messages as soon as they are received;
State/Local WEA Tests, with the ability to opt in.

The Federal Communications Commission (Commission) adopted these improvements to help communities communicate clearly and effectively about imminent threats and local crises, and to create a framework that would allow emergency managers to test, exercise, and raise public awareness about WEA.

The full notice can be viewed at:
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-19-358A1.pdf