In the Matter of		)
						)
		All-Hazard Warning - Comment& 	)      Docket No. 000609173-0173-01

The National Cable Television Association, Inc. ("NCTA") hereby submits its comments in the above-captioned proceeding. NCTA is the principal trade association of the cable television industry, representing the owners and operators of cable systems serving over 90 percent of the nation’s cable households. Its members also include cable programming networks, cable equipment manufacturers, and others affiliated with the cable television industry.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration ("NTIA") of the U.S. Department of Commerce initiated this proceeding to explore ways of improving the nation’s hazard warning systems in order to save lives. The Notice recognizes that "recent technological advances are fostering new and innovative methods of bringing warning messages to the public" in a faster, more affordable and more effective manner. NTIA seeks comment on the hazard warning capabilities of current and emerging communications technologies, including wireline and wireless telephone services, Internet, paging, broadcast television and radio, cable and satellite television, and new technologies.

NCTA is pleased to provide the following information about the cable industry’s role in disseminating emergency information to the American public where there is a threat to public safety.

The cable industry has a long history of providing emergency information to the communities it serves on both a voluntary basis and pursuant to franchise agreements with local governments. Some cable operators became involved in notifying the public of emergency situations in the 1960s by linking cable systems electronically to radio and television stations and federal, state and local agencies that participated in the Emergency Broadcast System ("EBS"). Other cable systems were required to warn customers of emergencies on all channels pursuant to local franchise requirements. In fact, several thousand cable systems installed alerting equipment that could be activated by local government or law enforcement officials when a weather-related or other hazardous situation arose in the community.

In 1992, Congress enacted section 16(b) of the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act ("the Cable Act"), which required cable systems to "comply with such standards as the [Federal Communications] Commission shall prescribe to ensure that viewers of video programming on cable systems are afforded the same emergency information as is afforded by the emergency broadcasting system…." This provision recognized the increased importance and pervasiveness of cable television. Before the passage of the Act, the Federal Communications Commission had initiated a proceeding to modernize EBS technology to facilitate greater speed, reliability and efficiency and to accommodate diverse technologies, such as cable television, and future digital transmission systems. The cable industry supported these efforts. In particular, the Society of Cable Television Engineers ("SCTE") conducted studies and tests to identify cost-effective approaches to increasing cable industry participation in EBS in light of the complex technical considerations and costs associated with implementing the technology in a multi-channel video environment.

In 1994, the FCC created the new Emergency Alert System ("EAS"), which established a new operational structure for national and local emergency alerts, incorporated broadcast, cable, and wireless cable (multi-point or multi-channel multi-point distribution systems) into the regulatory scheme, and fostered a new generation of emergency equipment. The Commission also adopted specific rules for cable systems pursuant to the Cable Act. The cable rules were revised and expanded in 1997 and are described below.

The FCC requires cable systems (based on size) to provide national EAS messages on all programmed channels on a phased-in basis. Cable systems and other participating technologies may activate EAS at the state and local level on a voluntary basis. The rules, which are set forth at 47 C.F.R. section 11, require cable systems that serve:

• 10,000 or more customers per headend to install EAS equipment capable of providing audio and video EAS messages on all programmed channels, effective December 31, 1998.

• 5,000 to 10,000 customers per headend to install EAS equipment that is capable of providing audio and video EAS messages on all programmed channels, effective October 1, 2002. This phase-in period was intended to allow smaller systems to benefit from anticipated cost reductions and to budget for the purchase and installation cost of necessary equipment.

• 5,000 or fewer customers per headend to either:

While not specifically required in the rules, the Commission expects EAS equipment to transmit a message that is generally no longer than 2 minutes in length and, at a minimum, to provide the viewer with the reason or event posing a threat, the location that the event may be affecting, an approximate time period that a threat to safety will last, and the originator of the alert message. The FCC rules also indicate that if the visual message is a video crawl, it must be displayed at the top of the customer’s television screen or where it will not interfere with other visual messages.

The rules permit cable operators and broadcasters to enter into written agreements to pass the broadcasters’ signals through without the cable-activated EAS message. In the interest of public safety, NCTA has encouraged cable operators, broadcasters, and local communities to work together to enter into these voluntary agreements where appropriate.

Under the rules, local franchise provisions may not conflict or interfere with the FCC’s EAS requirements. The FCC specifically permits EAS header codes, which contain the digital information that identifies the originator, event, location, time and date of the emergency, to be included in franchise agreements. The FCC emphasized, however, that there is no federal mandate that unilaterally imposes requirements to install EAS equipment before the FCC-established dates.

The FCC recognized that developments in digital technology are occurring rapidly and encouraged the developers of new transmission techniques to provide for emergency messaging in new equipment. The Society of Cable Television Engineers’ Digital Video Subcommittee has developed an emergency alert signaling method to enable cable systems to disseminate emergency information to digital equipment on a uniform basis. This voluntary signaling standard, DVS 208, is designed for use by cable systems that provide digital video services via digital set-top boxes, cable-ready digital TV receivers, and cable-ready digital VCR’s. It is applicable to digital cable equipment owned by cable operators or sold to customers at retail. Equipment manufacturers also have developed various proprietary methods for passing EAS signals on digital equipment.

The DVS 208 standard contains the following elements:

• A signaling scheme to identify the presence of an emergency alert.
• The start time and expected duration of the alert event.
• A textual description of the emergency alert.
• An indication of the availability and location of the "details" channel, an audio/video service pertaining to the alert.
• An indication whether the event is of sufficient importance that tuning to the detail channel shall be done unconditionally.
• A pointer to an optional audio channel that can be used to replace the audio of the current service for the duration of the emergency alert message.

Replacing the signal on all channels with an emergency information channel, as required by EAS rules for analog channels, is very complex for cable operators to implement in a digital cable environment where each transport stream may carry many programs or data that would have to be individually interrupted. The emergency alert signaling scheme defined in the DVS 208 standard allows a cable operator to disseminate information related to state and local warnings and emergencies in a cost-effective and efficient way by directing or, in some cases, force tuning the viewer to one channel containing the emergency information. To handle the rare case of a national-level EAS event, the emergency message instructs a digital cable-ready device to force-tune to a designated emergency broadcast channel.

As cable companies roll out new digital cable services, they are working to ensure that EAS messaging occurs on the digital platform either through proprietary technologies or through eventual application of the new DVS 208 standard.

The cable industry is participating in the FCC’s Emergency Alert System and has a long history of working with local franchising authorities to provide local warnings of emergency or hazardous situations to its customers.

Respectfully submitted,

Lisa Schoenthaler
Senior Director
Office of Rural & Small Systems

Andy Scott
Director of Engineering

National Cable Television Association
1724 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 775-3664