scope:

On January 30, 2018, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted a Second Report and Order (R&O) and Second Order on Reconsideration to enhance the effectiveness of Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) [Ref 3]. The Second R&O seeks to improve the accuracy emergency managers can geographically target the delivery of WEA messages to areas within their jurisdiction and can precisely target at-risk populations while minimizing disruption to others.

Specifically, the Second R&O requires Participating Commercial Mobile Service Providers (CMSPs) to meet the new requirements without affecting the 360-character text allotment:

• Deliver alert messages to an area that matches the target area specified by the alert as a circle or polygon to 100 percent of the target area with no more than 0.1 of a mile overshoot or to an area that best approximates the target area on only those elements of its network infrastructure incapable of matching the target area.

• Preserve alert messages in a consumer-accessible format and location for at least 24 hours after the message is received on the mobile device, or until deleted by the user.

NOTE: Some CMSPs may interpret "is received" to mean "is presented."

The use of the term WEA in this specification refers to WEA 3.0, unless otherwise indicated. This specification is intended for use by participating CMSPs per the FCC definition described in ATIS-0700035, Wireless Emergency Alert (3.0) Service Description [Ref 100], and all references to CMSPs in this specification refer to participating CMSPs.

The regulatory background is described in detail in the Service Description in ATIS-0700035 [Ref 100].

Purpose

The purpose of this standard is to specify methods for delivering the Alert Originator provided geometric shapes (circle(s) or polygon(s)) defining the Alert Area to the mobile device along with the WEA 3.0 alert text, as well as the encoding of the WEA 3.0 Warning Area Coordinate (WAC) Information Element (IE) for the geometric shapes.