The FCC has released an order granting a limited waiver of the Commission’s Emergency Alert System (EAS) and Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) rule to permit EAS Participants and Participating Commercial Mobile Service (CMS) Providers to participate in a test to be conducted by the Sonoma County Fire and Emergency Services Department (Sonoma County). This test will be a live EAS and end-to-end WEA test. Current FCC rules prohibit end-to-end WEA tests and the use of the WEA Attention Signal except during actual emergencies, authorized tests, and certain public service announcements. Sonoma County’s test would target multiple areas within the county, and the proposed WEA test message to be delivered to the mobile devices would be: “TEST emergency message – Sonoma County. www.socopsa.org to provide feedback. No other action needed.” The Order also requires Sonoma County to conduct any test and post-test analysis in a manner that preserves customers’ expectation of privacy, and Sonoma County is encouraged by the Commission to report test results by filing them with the FCC’s Public Safety Support Center.
