NDAA passed: Internet and Online Streaming Services Emergency Alert Study

Sun Jan 3 03:38:54 UTC 2021

On Sat, Jan 2, 2021 at 5:45 PM Max Harmony via NANOG <nanog at nanog.org>
wrote:

>
> On 02 Jan 2021, at 19.18, Matthew Petach <mpetach at netflight.com> wrote:
> > I think the challenge here is that there's a category of people
> > who don't have cell phones, who don't have cable TV, but
> > receive content over their internet connection.  I happen to
> > live with someone like that, so I know it's a non-zero portion
> > of the population.
>
> Emergency alerts are also on OTA TV (and radio), not just cable. People
> whose sole communications device is a computer can subscribe to FEMA'S
> IPAWS feed. People who can't (or don't want to) do that can use a weather
> radio (despite the name, NWS broadcasts all hazards alerts, not just
> weather). The most likely answer to "how do we get streaming services to
> provide emergency alerts?" is to make them redistribute the IPAWS feed and
> update their software to make the updates human-readable. It would probably
> be cheaper to just tell people where to find free IPAWS software instead of
> making every streaming service add the feature, and, as a last resort, give
> people who need them free weather radios.
>

The FEMA IPAWS system doesn't seem well-suited for end-users to
subscribe to it.  Of note is the specific restriction:

   - Providers cannot stress IPAWS servers with excessive requests.

Which might hint that the FEMA servers aren't intended to support
hundreds of thousands of individuals connecting directly to them
to request alert data.

It doesn't look like there's currently any internet-capable way of
consuming the IPAWS feed, at least that a quick search engine
dive turns up.  Wondering if any of the folks here know of providers
that have signed up with FEMA to redistribute the IPAWS feed
for free?  (Yes, I found WeatherMessage, but their pricing and
platform restrictions made them a non-starter).

Thanks!

Matt
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