FEMA Agrees to Manage Mobile Phone Alert System
RCR Wireless News is reporting that the Federal Emergency Management Agency will administer the nation’s mobile phone alert system, despite earlier tension over the matter between FEMA and the Federal Communications Commission.
A FEMA official told RCR that the agency has determined that it has the legal authority and technical ability to oversee development of the project.
Congress has ordered federal agencies, particularly the FCC, to establish a mobile phone alert system that could be employed during natural and other disasters. The system could feature direct cell phone transmission of emergency information, FM frequency transmission to properly equipped cell phones, or another method yet to be devised.
An initial deadline of Aug. 9 has been set for the establishment of a process for cell phone carriers to decide whether they will participate in the program. The FEMA official said the agency hopes to make the warning system operational within 18 months.
AEN Newsletter
This newsletter is produced by American’s Emergency Network, the nation’s first comprehensive emergency alerting and communications system. It is published monthly, along with occasional special editions to report important developments at AEN and within the field of emergency communications.
America’s Emergency Network:
Chairman of the Board:
Robert Adams
President & Chief Executive Officer: Bryan Norcross
Chief Technology Officer:
Chris Bennett
Senior Executive Vice President of Governmental Relations:
Max Mayfield
Senior Executive Vice President of Marketing: R. Matthew Straeb
AEN Newsletter:
Design: Chris Bennett
Production: Matt Sampson
Editor: Martin Merzer
Send to a Friend
Know someone who might be interested in receiving this newsletter? Forward them a copy!
Investor Relations
America’s Emergency Network, Inc. (AEN) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Brampton Crest International, Inc. (OTCBB: BRCI)
|
AEN's Norcross Sets Aside TV Duties
 Bryan Norcross, president and chief executive officer of America’s Emergency Network, is stepping away from a broadcasting career that spanned four decades so he can devote the full measure of his professional time to AEN.
“Lives can be saved with AEN’s system, and emergency managers are asking us to deploy it as quickly as possible,” Norcross said in announcing his decision late last month. “We are growing so rapidly that I decided I had no choice but to surrender my duties at WFOR-CBS4.
“I not saying that I will never do television again, but the development of AEN is crucially important and may turn out to be the most important thing that Max Mayfield and I ever have done professionally,” Norcross said.
The announcement was considered major news in South Florida, where all of the daily newspapers and many broadcast outlets ran stories about Norcross and AEN.
For nearly 20 years, Norcross guided the region through life-threatening storms, most notably Hurricane Andrew in August 1992. His service during that disaster earned him the admiration of the entire region and won him national recognition and a regional Emmy Award.
"Bryan's widely respected as one of this country's leading hurricane experts and he will always have the gratitude and admiration of this community for his efforts during Hurricane Andrew,” Shaun McDonald, WFOR’s president and general manager, said in a statement posted on the station’s website.
“A Huge Improvement”
America’s Emergency Network’s Chris Bennett Talks with Nokia’s Blogmeisters
 Chris Bennett, chief technology officer of America’s Emergency Network, recently chatted with Nokia blogger Jenny Chowdhury.
Here are excerpts of her report:
Nokia: Can you describe how the mobile phones will be employed for AEN?
Bennett: If there's an emergency in your town – something localized like a tanker truck accident or something widespread like a hurricane – your officials can instantly send a live video news conference or text bulletin to your community and local TV stations via AEN.
When an official posts an emergency bulletin, this information is sent to the AEN Central Database, where at that point it's just a matter of distribution to get the message out. Our messages are encoded in a format called CAP, or Common Alerting Protocol, which looks a lot like an XML feed. CAP includes fields such as Severity, Recommended Response, Effective Time, and other meta data that makes sense to represent in an emergency communication.
Multiple devices, mainly our website and mobile phones, can then look at the CAP messages as they are sent out and format them for display to the user. The real beauty with mobile "location aware" devices is that we now know two things – one, where the location of the emergency is and, two, where the person holding the phone is. With this information, we're able to alert users of emergencies literally happening in their immediate area.
This is a huge improvement over traditional systems that rely on you to enter a home zip code – which isn't all that helpful as soon as you begin to travel.
Nokia: What are the future plans for the AEN project?
Bennett: There are three things that everyone wants to know, whether they know it or not, and two ways to get it on a mobile device. You want to know when there's an emergency (1) near your location at that moment, (2) near your home and (3) near family or loved ones.
Our plans are to identify developers, device manufacturers and carriers that are ready to work with AEN's database of emergency messages to quickly answer those questions for you.
I see there being essentially two ways that AEN will integrate with your mobile device.
First, the device always needs to listen for critical alerts near you in concert with location technologies in your phone. We see a future where device manufactures and carriers only want to sell phones that can receive emergency alerts – and where consumers wouldn't buy a phone without that feature.
Second, there is a market for more advanced applications, where AEN may sell software that incorporates real-time traffic, weather and other tools that help persons navigate emergency situations.
Read the entire interview here:
http://www.nseries.com/index.html#l=workshop,articles,559
Potential of FM Availability on Cell Phone
 A new study concludes that a major opportunity exists for those interested in transmitting emergency information and other broadcasts directly to cell phone handsets over FM frequencies.
At the same time, though, many challenges must be overcome, according to the study, conducted for the National Association of Broadcasters’ FASTROAD technology advocacy program.
The May 2008 report found that the United States lags far behind the rest of the world in the percentage of cell phones capable of receiving FM radio broadcasts. Only about eight percent of U.S. cellular handsets were FM-capable in 2007, compared with 31 percent in the global marketplace.
But the study noted that the typical U.S. cell phone user changes devices every 20 months or so, providing an attractive opportunity for upgrades in capabilities.
“It is almost certain that, if the U.S. cellular operators reversed themselves and required FM receivers in handsets, then the handset suppliers would adjust rapidly and begin to supply such capability as a standard feature,” according to the study’s authors, Dr. Joseph S. Kraemer of the Law and Economics Consulting Group and Richard O. Levine of Constantine Cannon LLP.
Still, it could be a tough sell, according to the study. Among the reasons:
- The cellular business endures “fragile economics” that could discourage service providers from providing FM capability, especially considering the competition that free FM music broadcasts would present to the providers’ current profit center of music downloads.
- Concerns over handset battery life, antenna power and placement, and FM coverage of rural areas.
- Engineering and technical issues related to handsets’ response to alerts, the setting of priorities and compatibility with the FM-RDS system.
|
