Modernization of the Nation's Alerting Systems

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Parts 10 and 11</CFR> <DEPDOC>[PS Docket No. 25-224, FCC 25-50; FR ID 309226]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Modernization of the Nation's Alerting Systems</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) begins a reexamination of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) from the ground up and seeks comment on whether fundamental changes could make these alerting systems more effective, efficient, and better able to serve the public's needs. EAS was introduced 31 years ago, and WEA was introduced 13 years ago, using the technology available at the time. The Commission seeks comment on what goals these alerting systems should aim to achieve, whether these systems are currently effective at achieving these goals, and what steps should be taken to modernize these systems to improve their usefulness and better leverage modern technology while minimizing burdens on stakeholders. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments will be accepted until September 25, 2025. Reply comments will be accepted until October 10, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments, identified by PS Docket No. 25-224, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal Communications Commission's Website: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Mail/Paper Filings:</E> See the instructions in the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document. • <E T="03">People with Disabilities:</E> Contact the FCC to request reasonable accommodations (accessible format documents, sign language interpreters, CART, etc.) by email: <E T="03">FCC504@fcc.gov</E> or phone: 202-418-0530. For detailed instructions for submitting comments and additional information on the rulemaking process, see the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> George Donato, Associate Division Chief, Cybersecurity and Communications Reliability Division, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, at (202) 418-0729, or <E T="03">george.donato@fcc.gov;</E> or Tara Shostek, Attorney-Advisor, Cybersecurity and Communications Reliability Division, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, at (202) 418-8130, or <E T="03">tara.shostek@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">NPRM</E> ), PS Docket No. 25-224; FCC 25-50, adopted August 7, 2025, and released August 8, 2025. The full text of this document is available by downloading the text from the Commission's website at: <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-proposes-modernization-nations-alerting-systems.</E> The full text of this document is available for public inspection and copying during regular business hours in the FCC Reference Center, 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities (Braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), send an email to <E T="03">FCC504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530 (voice). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Procedural Matters</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comment Filing Requirements</HD> Pursuant to §§ 1.415 and 1.419 of the Commission's rules, 47 CFR 1.415, 1.419, interested parties may file comments and reply comments on or before the dates indicated on the first page of the NPRM. Comments may be filed using the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). • <E T="03">Electronic Filers:</E> Comments may be filed electronically using the internet by accessing the ECFS: <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/.</E> • <E T="03">Paper Filers:</E> Parties who choose to file by paper must file an original and one copy of each filing. • Filings can be sent by hand or messenger delivery, by commercial courier, or by the U.S. Postal Service. All filings must be addressed to the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission. • Hand-delivered or messenger-delivered paper filings for the Commission's Secretary are accepted between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. by the Commission's mailing contractor at 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. All hand deliveries must be held together with rubber bands or fasteners. Any envelopes and boxes must be disposed of before entering the building. • Commercial courier deliveries (any deliveries not by the U.S. Postal Service) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. • Filings sent by U.S. Postal Service First-Class Mail, Priority Mail, and Priority Mail Express must be sent to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. • <E T="03">People with Disabilities:</E> To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities (braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Ex Parte Rules</HD> The proceeding this NPRM initiates shall be treated as a “permit-but-disclose” proceeding in accordance with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. Persons making <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations must file a copy of any written presentation or a memorandum summarizing any oral presentation within two business days after the presentation (unless a different deadline applicable to the Sunshine period applies). Persons making oral <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations are reminded that memoranda summarizing the presentation must (1) list all persons attending or otherwise participating in the meeting at which the <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentation was made, and (2) summarize all data presented and arguments made during the presentation. If the presentation consisted in whole or in part of the presentation of data or arguments already reflected in the presenter's written comments, memoranda or other filings in the proceeding, the presenter may provide citations to such data or arguments in his or her prior comments, memoranda, or other filings (specifying the relevant page and/or paragraph numbers where such data or arguments can be found) in lieu of summarizing them in the memorandum. Documents shown or given to Commission staff during <E T="03">ex parte</E> meetings are deemed to be written <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations and must be filed consistent with § 1.1206(b). In proceedings governed by § 1.49(f) or for which the Commission has made available a method of electronic filing, written <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations and memoranda summarizing oral <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations, and all attachments thereto, must be filed through the electronic comment filing system available for that proceeding, and must be filed in their native format ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> .doc, .xml, .ppt, searchable .pdf). Participants in this proceeding should familiarize themselves with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Regulatory Flexibility Analysis</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, as amended (RFA), requires that an agency prepare a regulatory flexibility analysis for notice-and-comment rulemaking proceedings, unless the agency certifies that “the rule will not, if promulgated, have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.” Accordingly, the Commission has prepared an Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (IRFA) concerning potential rule and policy changes contained in this NPRM. The IRFA is set forth in Appendix A of the FCC document, <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-proposes-modernization-nations-alerting-systems.</E> The Commission invites the general public, in particular small businesses, to comment on the IRFA. Comments must be filed by the deadlines for comments on the NPRM indicated on the first page of the NPRM and must have a separate and distinct heading designating them as responses to the IRFA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Paperwork Reduction Act</HD> This NPRM does not contain proposed information collections subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), 44 U.S.C. 3501-3521. In addition, therefore, it does not contain any new or modified information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act</HD> Consistent with the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, Public Law 118-9, a summary of this NPRM will be available on <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/proposed-rulemakings.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> Congress established the Commission for the purposes of, among other things, the national defense and “promoting safety of life and property through the regulation of wire and radio communications networks.” For nearly 75 years, the Commission has implemented this mandate by adopting rules that set technical and other requirements to provide the public with an effective national public alert and warning system. The Commission's approach to emergency alerting has been to implement regulations intended to leverage existing commercial communications infrastructure for public safety purposes and to update that existing capability over time to reflect advances in technology and evolving consumer expectations. While this approach has gradually improved the nation's alerting capabilities, it may also have restricted innovation by preserving alerting frameworks that are decad ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 94k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━