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IPAWS Projects

The IPAWS program will continue to develop additional paths such a satellite, digital radio, Internet, and commercial broadcast television for later inclusion into the IPAWS program, to broaden the diversity and increase the types of communications pathways providing public alert and warning messages.

EAS Modernization and Expansion Project

From 2009-2011, the IPAWS PMO will expand the number of participating broadcast stations each year for a total of 74 stations. The expansion of participating stations will address known gaps in population coverage. The end goal is to maximize service to the public.

The IPAWS PMO will complete the integration of satellite data transmission paths as a diverse path for EAS message delivery from FEMA to relay stations. Satellite infrastructure can be fully integrated with the legacy EAS and initially provides a reliable, redundant commercial system utilizing multiple uplinks and satellites for national level EAS distribution. An XM Radio transmission path will be complete in the first quarter of 2010, and direct satellite connectivity will be available to the national PEP stations in the third quarter of 2010.

Primary Entry Point (PEP) Expansion

Each year from 2009-2013, FEMA National Continuity Programs’ Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) program office will expand the number of participating broadcast stations.

Primary Entry Point (PEP) Stations are private/commercial radio broadcast stations that cooperatively participate with FEMA to provide emergency alert and warning information to the public prior to, during, and after incidents and disasters.  The FEMA PEPs also serve as the primary source of initial broadcast for a Presidential or national EAS message.   PEPs are equipped with additional and back up communications equipment and power generators designed to enable them to continue broadcasting information to the public during and after an event.  FEMA is expanding the number of PEP Stations across the nation to cover over 90 percent of the US population.  FEMA, in cooperation with station licensees and operators of communication facilities, will maintain capabilities necessary for the national public alert and warning system. The PEP Station Expansion project will help ensure that under all conditions the President of the United States can alert and warn the public.

In September 2009, FEMA contracted with the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)to begin equipping additional radio stations to become FEMA PEP stations.  The project with USACE is actively bringing new stations into the FEMA PEP program.  High level tasks include;activating a new PEP station, , initial site assessments, environmental assessments, design specifications, construction of special facilities, and coordinating memorandums of agreement with the stations and activity coordination with the State, local, tribal, territorial jurisdictions and the FEMA Regional offices.

The PEP stations will also provide resilience for alerts and warnings to the public. The IPAWS Program Management Office is modernizing existing PEP stations with next generation alert and warning equipment to include Common Alert Protocol (CAP) compliance equipment, and Internet Protocol enabled equipment. Satellite Communications will also be used to increase the resilience as an alternate path for disseminating alert and warning.

The FEMA IPAWS PEP Station Expansion project expects to include and maintain over 80 PEP stations operational throughout the United States and its territories (U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, US Mariana Islands) by the end of the project.  Direct coverage of the nation’s population will expand from approximately 67 percent in 2009 to over 90 percent when these additional stations become operational.  

Primary Entry Point map

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Open Platform for Emergency Networks (IPAWS-OPEN) or The Aggregator

The Open Platform for Emergency Networks (IPAWS-OPEN) enhances efficient coordination and collaboration among public safety organizations using different incident management systems. IPAWS-OPEN enables the interoperable sharing of emergency alerts and incident-related data between systems that comply with non-proprietary information standards. IPAWS-OPEN will serve the Integrated Public Alerts and Warning System (IPAWS) as the IPAWS Alerts Aggregator. It will collect and route IPAWS emergency alerts to and from emergency systems that serve the public. This system will integrate with the various alert dissemination methods of IPAWS. Additionally, its web services based design will allow for the addition of future alert and warning systems.

IPAWS-OPEN will support three basic Web services through Application Programming Interfaces available to third party developers free of charge.

*The Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) standards have been adopted by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS).

IPAWS Open or "The Aggregator"

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Alert Origination

Alert origination tools are software products used by emergency managers, public safety officials, and other alerting authorities to create and send critical life saving messages to the public. As commercial software vendors incorporate CAP-conformant alerting into existing or newly developed products, these systems can be authorized to deliver CAP-compliant messages through the IPAWS-OPEN Aggregator to reach the public through radio, TV, cellular mobile devices, Internet-based communications, and other CAP-compliant alerting systems.

Please see IPAWS-OPEN Aggregator Collaborating Operating Group Information for updates.

DMIS Tools

IPAWS-OPEN will supersede the existing DM-OPEN which will be decommissioned September 30, 2011. Concurrently, the Disaster Management Interoperability Services (DMIS) Toolset system will also be retired.

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Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)

The Common Alerting Protocol(CAP) is a digital format for exchanging emergency alerts that will allow a consistent alert message to be disseminated simultaneously over many different communications systems. FEMA has worked with the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) to develop a profile to the standard that defines a specific way of using the standard for IPAWS purposes.

CAP provides a standard around which our nations alert and warning capabilities can be integrated. Three documents currently define CAP as it will be implemented and used in IPAWS:

The FCC has defined a compliance window for EAS broadcasters to be able to receive an IPAWS CAP message, commencing with FEMA’s adoption of CAP as the new format for alert messages.

FEMA's other partners in developing the IPAWS CAP Profile include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Federal Communications Commission, DHS Science & Technology Directorate, and the Emergency Interoperability Consortium.

The IPAWS CAP Profile’s open standard will facilitate manufacturing by multiple suppliers and will ensure interoperability among alert and warning systems at the federal and state levels as well as across different alert delivery systems. FEMA has established the IPAWS CAP Profile Conformity Assessment Program to provide an independent, objective analysis of qualified products to ensure they adhere to the IPAWS CAP Profile.

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Conformity Assessment Program

The Conformity Assessment Program assesses vendor products for adherence to, and appropriate application of the IPAWS CAP Profile for alert message creation and dissemination. This will allow FEMA to verify that systems conform to the CAP Profile, a requirement to interface properly with the IPAWS Alert Aggregator and to interoperate with other alerting applications and systems. Products that conform will have a Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity (SDoC) posted to the FEMA Responders Knowledge Base (RKB) website along with a description of their product and contact information.  The Conformity Assessment Program will provide Federal, State, territorial, tribal and local officials the ability to view a list of pre-screened products when considering alert and warning system purchases or upgrades.  Emergency management officials, broadcasters, and other EAS equipment users are encouraged to learn more about the program and to access test reports on the FEMA RKB website (www.rkb.us ) before making alert and warning system purchases. Vendors are encouraged to access the IPAWS Conformity Assessment Program website to apply for testing: www.oasis-open.org/home/index.php.

Additional information about the CAP Standard can be found on the web site of the OASIS open standards development body at www.oasis-open.org.

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Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS)

The IPAWS vision is to ensure that all Americans are able to receive accurate alerts and warnings, regardless of what communications technologies they use. The inclusion of cellular alerts under the IPAWS system reflects the important role that wireless technologies play in consumers’ lives today. IPAWS will include a wireless mobile alerting capability into the IPAWS network to better warn citizens. Providing critical alert information via wireless devices will help the public avoid danger or respond more quickly during crisis, and thereby save lives and property.

The Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) is one of the major components of the IPAWS. The CMAS component will provide an interface to participating cellular mobile service providers for delivery of critical alert information to cellular phones in a danger zone. Specifically, the IPAWS CMAS capability will provide Federal, state, territorial, tribal and local government officials the ability to send 90 character, geographically targeted text alerts to the public ,warning of imminent threats to life and property. The cellular industry, the FCC, and DHS S&T are critical partners with FEMA in developing this new alerting capability. The initial requirements of the system were developed by an advisory committee established by the FCC in accordance with the Warning, Alert and Response Network (“WARN”) Act of 2006. The Commercial Mobile Service Alert Advisory Committee (CMSAAC) conducted meetings during 2008 with findings published in three FCC Report and Order documents.

A key differentiator of the IPAWS CMAS capability versus existing subscription-based text messaging alert services currently available in some localities is that the IPAWS CMAS will enable alert messages to be sent to any cell phone within range of a particular cellular communications towers. The CMAS also utilizes different communications channels and protocols in cellular systems which decrease the impact of network congestion on alert message delivery during times of emergency.

The IPAWS Program worked with DHS S&T and the Alliance of Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) during 2009 to establish a specification for the interface between a federal alert aggregator/gateway and commercial service provider gateways. In November 2009, the ATIS/TIA Joint CMAS Working Group approved the “Joint ATIS/TIA CMAS Federal Alert Gateway to Commercial Mobile Service Providers (CMSP) Gateway Specification” and the specification was adopted as the Government Interface Design Specification for the FEMA IPAWS federal alert aggregator/gateway in a joint FEMA and FCC on December 7, 2009. The press release initiated the 28-month period during which participating Commercial Mobile Service (CMS) providers must develop, test and deploy their portion of the CMAS.

The FEMA IPAWS team is currently continuing work with the ATIS/TIA JCMAS Working Group to define a CMAS Interface Test and Certification Spec and to implement the federal CMAS requirements in the IPAWS OPEN aggregator/gateway infrastructure. The IPAWS Program Office expects to have an initial IPAWS CMAS operating capability in early 2012.

The IPAWS wireless initiative will ensure that:

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Geo-Targeted Alerting System (GTAS)

NOAA is developing a tool in partnership with IPAWS for plume modeling and collaboration.  GTAS will quickly estimate the affected area during a HAZMAT incident using current weather conditions and allow for the rapid creation of a CAP message for public alerting.  GTAS also provides collaboration tools for emergency managers to leverage the expertise of their supporting National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office.

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Inventory and Evaluation

The Inventory and Evaluation project will catalog and evaluate existing federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local government alert and warning systems. Collected data and reports are intended to describe the inventory of resources (alert and warning systems in use, policies, plans, procedures, staff, facilities) that make up the public alert and warning systems currently used at the federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local levels of government. Additional analysis will provide a view of current capabilities of existing public alert and warning systems resources as compared to planned IPAWS capabilities. This will allow IPAWS to work with these agencies in the planning of additional capabilities, policies, procedures and resources if needed.

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Radio Broadcast Data System (RBDS)

Many current FM broadcast stations provide services in addition to their main broadcast channels. These services utilize subsidiary carriers, or frequencies which are combined with and broadcast with their normal audio programming. The most commonly encountered subcarrier is the 57 kHz Radio Broadcast Data System (RBDS) signal which often conveys the station call letter, slogan and/or artist and title information displayed by many automotive FM receivers. The North American Radio Broadcast Data System standard, based in-part upon the pre-existing European Radio Data Standard (RDS) was introduced in 1993.

In 1991, the Federal Communications Commission began an examination of the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) with an eye towards modernizing and improving it with new technologies and procedures. In September 1992, the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rule making where the RDS (RBDS) Technology was proposed as a possible replacement for the aging EBS. The technology was brought to the United States in the late 1980s as a system for the chemical and nuclear industries and for severe weather and earthquakes. Advances in technology and changes in the threat environment have given rise to several methods of utilizing RBDS to communicate emergency alerts to the public.

Radio Broadcast Data System (RBDS) technologies have been employed to distribute digital alert messages through FM radio stations. FEMA is evaluating innovative methods to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of the national alerts and warnings distribution infrastructure. Congress has directed the IPAWS PMO to validate the usefulness of existing RBDS technologies to deliver notification of individuals during emergencies and the IPAWS PMO has initiated action to evaluate this technology.

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Last Modified: Friday, 23-Sep-2011 11:51:38 EDT