WASHINGTON – December 18, 2023 – America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) today urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to explore using television datacasting technologies to help fill wireless coverage gaps when cell service is interrupted during disasters.
In comments filed with the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, APTS proposed testing the use of public television datacasting to deliver a Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) to a home alerting gateway which then passes the WEA to home devices, including cell phones, tablets, interactive voice assistants and other home connected devices, via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies.
This home alerting gateway, which would work with datacasting in both ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 broadcast technologies, is in development and will be ready for testing in early 2024. APTS says the device is inexpensive and easy to install and use.
According to the filing, datacasting via public television spectrum, with broadcasting’s one-to-many delivery model, is efficient, reliable and cost effective, has a broad geographic reach and can serve an important role in WEA contingency planning.
Local public television stations use a slice of broadcast spectrum to deliver encrypted video, files and other data for public safety communications and other innovative uses. Approximately 120 public television stations are already equipped for datacasting, and the number of stations continues to grow.
“Public safety is an essential part of public television’s mission to serve the American people,” said Patrick Butler, president and CEO of America’s Public Television Stations.
“Public television stations have worked with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to demonstrate the effectiveness of our public safety communications capability in flood control and evacuation, school shooting scenarios, large crowd management, over-water emergency communications and other life-saving applications.
“Public television stations have also partnered with the California Office of Emergency Services to reduce the early earthquake warning standard from 30 seconds to less than 3 seconds. We’ve built a Statewide Emergency Communications Network with the State of Tennessee. Public media stations in Florida created an emergency network that delivers up-to-the minute weather and news reports during severe weather events in Florida and South Carolina. And we’re pursuing many other alert and warning initiatives across America.
“We would be honored to partner with the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau to further serve communities across the country with public television’s lifesaving datacasting technology,” Butler said.
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About APTS
America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) is a nonprofit membership organization ensuring a strong and financially sound public television system and helping member stations provide essential public services in education, public safety and civic leadership to the American people. For more information, visit www.apts.org.
Contact:
Stacey Karp
202-654-4222
skarp@apts.org