Information about the national test of the Emergency Alert System

Thu Sep 28 04:01:29 UTC 2017

I didn't see a blip on my TV, or hear anything on the local radio
stations.  I didn't even get an alert on my cell phone.  Did I miss
it, or did it get cancelled?

-A

On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 9:03 AM, Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com> wrote:
>> And your upstream(s) to work. And their upstream(s) to work. etc. If 90%
>> of the stations in the EAS web are down you may end up with nothing working.
>
>
> 6% of TV stations are operating in Puerto Rico
> 15% of radio stations are operating in Puerto Rico
>
> Nationally, there are about 28,000 cable systems, radio and television
> stations.
>
> This test will not use the FEMA primary entry point system, so its only a
> partial test of the national EAS.
>
> Today's national test of the Emergency Alert System will be the same as the
> 2016 national test.  It is a partial test of the EAS, using the FEMA IPAWS
> system over the internet (i.e. Akamai and Cloudfront are used as CDNs) to
> the distribute the emergency test message. Cable, radio and TV stations need
> a working Internet connection as well as radio receivers and transmitters
> for IPAWS and EAS.
>
> Although the national test was scheduled back in July, its still a good test
> opportunity to see how the internet and EAS works in Puerto Rico and the
> U.S. VI with so much damage to the infrastructure. The one minute national
> test should not intefere with disaster recovery efforts in PR or USVI.
>
> For more information:
>
> https://www.fema.gov/news-release/2017/09/19/mandatory-nationwide-test-emergency-alert-system-be-conducted-september-27
>
> https://www.fcc.gov/document/nationwide-emergency-alert-system-test-planned-september-27
>