If you’ve got cable and it goes off for a few minutes on November 9, don’t panic. It could just be a test of the Emergency Alert System scheduled for that day.
According to a letter by Michael Powell, chief of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, cable customers boxes will be switched over to a channel for the test. An audio warning will tell customers this is only a test, but the video feed will only indicate this an EAS warning.
And that could be a problem, Powell warns. Powell wants the audio and video to indicate this is only a test so as not to create panic. Powell asserts that despite efforts to get the world out, some cable customers won’t be aware of the test and could panic when the alert shows up on screen.
“We are concerned that a great number of cable households will not be see an onscreen message that ‘this is only a test,’” Powell wrote in an Oct. 21 letter to Craig Fugate of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “This raises the possibility that some viewers, particularly the deaf and hard-of-hearing, could mistakenly believe that the test is an actual national emergency.”
This is the first test of the system.
Broadcasters are likely to have the necessary production equipment to run a “test” crawl during the three-minute event. Satellite operators can do text overlays from centralized distribution facilities. Far-flung cable headends generally lack such equipment, however, and EAS messages are passed through automatically.
Powell said the industry is trying to come up with a fix, and that Trilithic and Monroe have recently developed software patches allowing cable operators to do a text overlay. Field tests have started, but hundreds of headends will have to be patched–including those without Trilithic or Monroe gear, Powell said.
“At this juncture, it appears that a significant number of cable systems will not be able to deploy the patches given the amount of variety of equipment in the field,” he said. “As a result, for many operators, there simply is not enough time remaining to responsibly test and deploy the new software.”
Powell goes on to mention how the implementation of the Common Alerting Protocol would allow cable operators to display text information, but the CAP deployment deadline has been extended to June of next year.
“The most prudent course would be to postpone the national test until better functionality exists in the EAS system to visually indicate tat this is a test,” Powell wrote. “We understand the effort that has gone into the test and the desire for national test data. But given that the national alerts have not been tested for decades, we believe that the benefits of conducting a test on Nov. 9 are outweighed by the risk that some consumers–particularly in the deaf and hard-of-hearing community–will mistakenly believe that the emergency is real.”
An NCTA spokesman said the industry does not expect a delay in the test and has been “working diligently for the past few months to implement a consumer awareness campaign to alert viewers that they should not be alarmed when the test occurs.”
We may have a new “Night that Panicked America” on our hands- This could be fun!!!!! All we need is a modern Orson Wells.