Federal Communications Commission FCC 15-154
STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONERMIGNON L. CLYBURN
Re: Improving Wireless Emergency Alerts and Community-Initiated Alerting, PS Docket No. 15-91
Last Friday evening, our hearts collectively skipped a beat as we saw and listened in disbelief the 
images and commentary of the horrific, violent attacks on one of our country’s oldest allies.  Reports of 
how Parisians used their mobile phones to call for help, access services on social media networks, receive 
updates on the dangers in specific geographic areas, and to tell family and friends where they can find 
safe havens are tragically powerful reminders that, when faced with a dire emergency, people increasingly 
turn first to advanced mobile technologies.
The one ray of positive news we are able to share in this dreadful aftermath, is that this 
Commission is showing great leadership in ensuring the wireless industry and public safety communities 
keep pace with growing consumer expectations through the adoption of rules which promote text-to-911 
and improve wireless location accuracy.  I wish to also commend Chairman Wheeler for identifying steps 
Congress can take to help states facilitate the deployment of Next Generation 911 services.  
With today’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, we are taking strides to improve the usefulness of 
yet another important public safety tool – the Wireless Emergency Alert System or WEA for short.  Our 
federal government has been working to deploy this public-private partnership for several years.  Back in 
2005, the Department of Homeland Security established the National Consortium for the Study of 
Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, or START, and one of START’s top priorities is a research and 
development program that would drive wider use of wireless alerts.  Last fall, our advisory committee, 
CSRIC, worked with START to develop recommendations for the Commission to consider.  This item 
turns those recommendations into rule proposals that fall into three key areas. 
The first, is to enhance the content of WEA messages, by allowing them to be longer than 90 
characters and more accessible to all communities.  We ask whether we should allow these messages to 
contain phone numbers, URLs, multimedia, and multilingual content.  The item also properly 
acknowledges MMTC’s advocacy in highlighting the importance of providing emergency alerts in 
languages other than English.
Second is the improvement of the geo-targeting of Wireless Emergency Alerts.  Right now, our 
rules prevent providers from transmitting WEA messages to areas larger than county level.  We want 
WEA alerts to be much more localized so messages only reach the actual people who are at risk.  
Otherwise, those who repeatedly get alerts that may not be relevant for them may one day actually ignore 
alerts that directly impact their health and safety.  So we ask whether we should limit WEA alerts, to finer 
geospatial areas such as geocodes, circles, or polygons.   
Third is the facilitation of local WEA system testing.  Proficiency building exercises are key to 
successful emergency management programs.  We seek comment on whether any new or revised 
technical standards or processes, would be necessary to facilitate state and local testing.
In sum, this Notice puts our country on a path to improve the effectiveness of the WEA system 
for public safety officials and the citizens they serve.  I thank Admiral Simpson, and the dedicated staff of 
the Public Safety Homeland Security Bureau, for their good work on this Notice, and for the presentation 
this morning.