EAS EAS Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which standard protocol enables interoperability between WEA, EAS, and other modern public alerting systems?
- Simple Alert Markup Language (SAML)
- Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) (Correct answer)
- Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL)
- Digital Alert Messaging Protocol (DAMP)
Correct answer: Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)
CAP (Common Alerting Protocol) is the XML-based open standard that enables alerts to be formatted once and distributed across multiple platforms including WEA, EAS, and NOAA systems.
Question 2: What is the primary advantage of CAP over the older SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding) EAS format?
- CAP transmits faster over analog radio frequencies
- CAP supports multilingual messages and multimedia content such as maps and images (Correct answer)
- CAP bypasses the need for any broadcast infrastructure
- CAP is exclusively compatible with federal alerting systems
Correct answer: CAP supports multilingual messages and multimedia content such as maps and images
CAP supports rich content including multilingual text, embedded URLs, geographic polygon data, and attachments, far exceeding the capabilities of the older SAME protocol.
Question 3: By what date did the FCC require EAS participants to be capable of receiving CAP-formatted alerts?
- June 30, 2007
- June 30, 2010
- June 30, 2012 (Correct answer)
- June 30, 2015
Correct answer: June 30, 2012
The FCC mandated that all EAS participants be capable of receiving and processing CAP-formatted alerts by June 30, 2012.
Question 4: Which organization maintains and publishes the CAP standard used in public alerting?
- FEMA Office of Emergency Communications
- OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) (Correct answer)
- Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
- National Weather Service (NWS)
Correct answer: OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards)
CAP is an open international standard published and maintained by OASIS, ensuring it is not proprietary to any single government agency or vendor.
Question 5: After an alert originator submits a CAP message to IPAWS, which entity actually transmits the WEA message to mobile phones?
- FEMA field offices in the affected area
- Local emergency management agencies
- Participating wireless carriers (Correct answer)
- The FCC's Emergency Alert Coordination Center
Correct answer: Participating wireless carriers
IPAWS aggregates and authenticates the alert, then distributes it to participating wireless carriers, which broadcast the WEA message via cell broadcast to devices in the target area.
Question 6: What is IPAWS, and what role does it play in the WEA and EAS ecosystem?
- A NOAA satellite system that retransmits weather alerts to broadcast stations
- FEMA's Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, which aggregates and distributes CAP alerts to WEA and EAS (Correct answer)
- An FCC database of licensed EAS participants
- A backup transmission network operated by the Department of Defense
Correct answer: FEMA's Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, which aggregates and distributes CAP alerts to WEA and EAS
IPAWS (Integrated Public Alert and Warning System) is FEMA's national alerting gateway that receives CAP-formatted messages from authorized originators and distributes them to WEA, EAS, NOAA, and other channels.
Question 7: Under FCC rules, how quickly must participating wireless carriers deliver a WEA message after receiving it from IPAWS?
- Within 30 seconds (Correct answer)
- Within 60 seconds
- Within 3 minutes
- Within 10 minutes
Correct answer: Within 30 seconds
FCC rules require participating wireless carriers to transmit WEA messages to devices in the target area within approximately 30 seconds of receiving the alert from IPAWS.
EAS EAS Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) 2
Which standard protocol enables interoperability between WEA, EAS, and other modern public alerting systems?