NAB Differs With “EAS at the Edge” in Important Respects – Radio World

Yet the association says it is “agnostic” regarding the development of necessary software

U.S. broadcaster representatives, FCC officials and technology manufacturers continue to discuss how the EAS system could be transitioned to a software-based infrastructure.

As we’ve reported, the National Association of Broadcasters would like the FCC to allow Emergency Alert System participants to use software-based encoder/decoder technology in place of a physical hardware equipment box. NAB says such a move would improve cybersecurity and make EAS more robust.

NAB recapped its argument at a December meeting with the FCC Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau that also delved into some of the technical specifics. During the meeting the association told the commission that it differs with proponents of the approach called “EAS at the Edge” in some important respects.

Redundancy and failover

The NAB representatives included engineering executives Kelly Williams and David Layer and Associate General Counsel Larry Walke. Also attending were radio engineers Steve Shultis of New York Public Radio and Roswell Clark of Cox Media Group.

NAB told the bureau staff that benefits of using software-based architecture would include reducing or eliminating the down time needed to repair malfunctioning equipment and install security-related software patches.

It would also enable immediate failover to standby equipment if needed, and enable the use of redundant, geographically diverse locations of encoder/decoder operations in the event of a large disaster.

The NAB envisions testing and certification by vendors to ensure seamless integration of software-based architecture with the existing EAS system. And it said broadcasters are familiar with securing software-based systems, citing the Nielsen PPM system as an example.

(Here’s a link to slides from an earlier presentation that summarize the NAB’s case.)

No supply chain issues

The NAB acknowledged a proposal from Digital Alert Systems, Telos Alliance and Nautel called EAS at the Edge, which involves a hybrid combination using IP-enabled hardware at the operator site, and virtualized systems for radio station operations and system monitoring, management, reporting and software updating. The commission staff recently heard from those companies in a separate presentation.

NAB expressed appreciation for DAS’s efforts to innovate systems that could benefit EAS participants. “We also noted that the goals of NAB’s proposal recognize the concerns raised by DAS and that the structure of our proposal aligns with DAS’s approach to a certain extent,” it wrote.

“For example, like DAS’s approach, our proposal would allow broadcasters to insert EAS processing in the modern audiovisual over internet protocol airchain, simplify the reception and playback of EAS messages, and allow autonomous EAS processing at either the local station or the local transmission site.”

It continued: “At bottom, however, DAS’s approach involves an IP-enabled hardware appliance not contemplated in NAB’s proposal. A primary goal of NAB’s proposal is to provide broadcasters the flexibility not to rely on a physical device, and certainly not on a specific branded device,” the association wrote in an ex parte meeting summary.

Yet NAB says it remains “agnostic” regarding the development of the necessary software and said it would prefer that existing trusted vendors of EAS equipment take the lead in developing such a product.

The parties also discussed the recent announcement by Sage Alerting Systems that it has stopped making hardware due to the difficulty of acquiring parts for the production of additional or new ENDEC devices.

NAB stated: “The parties noted that such manufacturing and supply chain issues would not be a significant concern under NAB’s software-based EAS approach.”

[Related: “Florida Launches AI-Powered Emergency Communications System”]

Below are two images from an NAB presentation, the first showing a station airchain with hardware encoder, the second showing its proposed software-based approach.