The Digital Emergency Alert System (DEAS) was a system managed by the

Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Exec ...

(FEMA) and designed to alert first-responders and civilians in the event of a national emergency. It was based upon and supplemented the

Emergency Alert System The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national warning system in the United States designed to allow authorized officials to broadcast emergency alerts and warning messages to the public via cable, satellite, or broadcast television, and both ...

(EAS) by sending out text, voice, video, and other digital messages to mobile phones, pagers, radios, and televisions. Although the Emergency Alert System and its predecessor, the

Emergency Broadcast System The Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), sometimes called the Emergency Broadcasting System or the Emergency Action Notification System (EANS), was an emergency warning system used in the United States. It replaced the previous CONELRAD system an ...

and an even earlier predecessor

CONELRAD CONELRAD (''Control of Electromagnetic Radiation'') was a method of emergency broadcasting to the public of the United States in the event of enemy attack during the Cold War. It was intended to allow continuous broadcast of civil defense informa ...

, have always allowed the transmission of both video and audio, there have been limitations that would be eliminated by the DEAS. For example, the DEAS allowed the ability to broadcast "bottomless" audio messages (i.e. a message with no definite ending) and streaming video. It also allowed near-instantaneous transmission without the delays that occur as EAS alerts trickle through the system.

History

In 2004,

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

member station,

KLVX KLVX (channel 10) is a PBS member television station in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. Owned by the Clark County School District, it is the flagship outlet of the district's communications arm, the KLVX Communications Group. KLVX's studios ar ...

, was the first station in the United States to demonstrate what digital television has to offer in times of emergency. In 2010, the DEAS project was terminated in favor of FEMA's IPAWS Open Platform for Emergency Networks (OPEN). IPAWS OPEN is a set of securely hosted Web services that enable the routing of standards-compliant emergency messages between disparate third-party applications, systems, networks and devices. As stated by FEMA, reasons for terminating DEAS included concerns over the stability and reliability of some of the underlying products, and the proprietary nature of many of the systems used within DEAS. However, responding to a mandate included in the WARN act, FEMA continues to utilize a variant of the DEAS architecture for

Wireless Emergency Alerts Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA, formerly known as the Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS), and prior to that as the Personal Localized Alerting Network (PLAN)), is an alerting network in the United States designed to disseminate emergency alert ...

, also known as the Personal Localized Alerting Network (PLAN). In 2007 and 2008, the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...

proposed and adopted the network structure, operational procedures and technical requirements for the

Personal Localized Alerting Network Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA, formerly known as the Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS), and prior to that as the Personal Localized Alerting Network (PLAN)), is an alerting network in the United States designed to disseminate emergency alert ...

(PLAN) system.{{cite news , last=Wyatt , first=Edward , title=Emergency Alert System Expected for Cellphones , url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/us/10safety.html , access-date=2011-05-26 , newspaper=

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

, date=2011-05-09 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110515095230/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/us/10safety.html?_r=2 , archive-date=2011-05-15 , url-status=dead

References

External links

Government Video article on DEAS
Emergency Alert System Disaster preparedness

History

See also

References

External links