| The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national system that was put into place in 1994 to replace the Emergency Broadcast System. It is jointly administered by the FCC, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Weather Service. |
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| The EAS allows radio and television broadcast stations to send emergency information to the public quickly in times of emergency. |
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| Fig. 1: Many broadcasters regularly test the EAS with messages like these |
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| On May 31, 2007, the FCC announced it had adopted an order requiring all EAS participants to support CAP (common alerting protocol) in order to facilitate the “efficient and rapid transmission of EAS alerts to the American public in a variety of formats (including text, audio and video) and via different means (broadcast, cable, satellite, and other networks).” |
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| AtHoc’s EAS Activation Module allows emergency management officials to trigger the national emergency alert system using IWSAlerts’ Web-based alert management system, sending EAS messages over the Internet to broadcasters using the CAP protocol. |
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| The AtHoc IWSAlerts EAS Activation Module includes components that enable CAP-compliance per the FCC order for both the emergency management agencies and the EAS participating broadcasters. As such, emergency management organizations using AtHoc IWSAlerts will be able to trigger EAS systems by transmitting a CAP message that would be received by the broadcaster’s CAP-enabled EAS equipment. |
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Recent press-related activity:
AtHoc Introduces IWSAlerts Module that Allows Emergency Management Organizations to Trigger the National Emergency Alert System |
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| Hawaii State Civil Defense Selects AtHoc IWSAlerts to Create One of the Most Comprehensive State-wide Emergency Alerting Systems for First Responders, Citizens and Special Needs Community |
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| AtHoc’s Emergency Notification System Achieves CAP Compliance |
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