The FCC has released a public notice announcing its initial overview of the country’s 2017 nationwide Emergency Alert System (EAS) test results. The FCC, in cooperation with FEMA and the National Weather Service conducted a nationwide test of the EAS on September 27, 2017. It was designed to assess the reliability and effectiveness of the EAS, with an emphasis on testing FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), the integrated gateway through which common alerting protocol-based EAS alerts are disseminated to EAS Participants. EAS Participants were required to report initial EAS testing results on the day of testing, and more detailed results on or before November 13, 2017. According to the FCC, 19,069 EAS Participants, including radio and television broadcasters, cable systems and IPTV providers in all U.S. states and territories participated in the EAS test. Nearly 96 percent of the EAS Participants successfully received the test alert and just shy of 92 percent of EAS Participants successfully retransmitted the test alert (compared to only 85.8 % in 2016).
