CCA Advises Caution on Changes to WEAs
The FCC should proceed with care on proposed rules for wireless emergency alerts (WEAs), especially in any requirement to embed URLs, the Competitive Carriers Association said in a meeting with Public Safety Bureau Chief David Simpson and other FCC officials.…
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CCA reported on the meeting in docket 15-91. “Though technology has evolved since the adoption of the WEA rules, it is unclear at this time whether and how embedded URLs in every WEA alert could affect network capacity,” CCA said. “CCA therefore cautioned the Commission against requiring the use of embedded URLs for every WEA message at this time.” Instead, the FCC should first study the effect on networks, CCA said. The association in general supports proposals to increase the maximum WEA length from 90 to 360 characters, CCA said. But here, too, “CCA cautioned the Commission to ensure that any requirements to expand character lengths are conditioned upon a carrier network’s technical capability to support additional content.” The agency proposed at commissioners' November meeting to allow longer WEA messages, inclusion of hyperlinks and narrower distribution of alerts (see 1511190053).