86824 Federal Register / Vol. 88, No. 240 / Friday, December 15, 2023 / Rules and Regulations 

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS 

COMMISSION 

47 CFR Part 10 

[PS Docket Nos. 15–94, 15–91; FCC 23– 

88; FR ID 189576] 

Emergency Alert System; Wireless 

Emergency Alerts 

AGENCY: Federal Communications 

Commission. 

ACTION: Final rule. 

SUMMARY: In this document, the Federal 

Communications Commission 

(Commission) adopts rules for 

commercial mobile service providers 

that have elected to participate in the 

Wireless Emergency Alert system (WEA) 

(Participating CMS Providers) to 

support WEA messages in the 13 most 

commonly spoken languages in the U.S. 

as well as English and American Sign 

Language. Participating CMS Providers 

are to support this expanded 

multilingual alerting by enabling mobile 

devices to display message templates 

that will be pre-installed and stored on 

the mobile device. The Commission also 

directs its Public Safety and Homeland 

Security Bureau to seek comment on 

various implementation details of the 

multilingual alerting requirements and 

future expansion to additional 

languages. In addition, to help 

personalize emergency alerts, the 

Commission requires participating 

wireless providers to support the 

inclusion of maps in WEA messages that 

show the alert recipient’s location 

relative to the geographic area where the 

emergency is occurring, and establishes 

a Commission-hosted database to 

provide the public with easy-to-access 

information on WEA availability. 

Wireless providers will be required to 

supply information on whether they 

participate in WEA and, if so, the extent 

of WEA availability in their service area 

and on the mobile devices that they sell. 

Last, to support more effective WEA 

performance and public awareness, the 

amended rules enable alerting 

authorities to send two local WEA tests 

per year that the public receives by 

default, provided that the alerting 

authority takes steps to ensure that the 

public is aware that the test is, in fact, 

only a test. 

DATES: Effective December 15, 2026, 

except for the amendments to 47 CFR 

10.210(b), (c), and (d)), 10.350(d), 

10.480(a) and (b), and 10.500(e), which 

are delayed indefinitely. The Federal 

Communications Commission will 

announce the effective dates of the 

delayed amendments by publishing 

documents in the Federal Register. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For 

further information regarding this 

Further Notice, please contact Michael 

Antonino, Cybersecurity and 

Communications Reliability Division, 

Public Safety and Homeland Security 

Bureau, (202) 418–7965, or by email to 

michael.antonino@fcc.gov. For 

additional information concerning the 

Paperwork Reduction Act information 

collection requirements contained in 

this document, send an email to PRA@

fcc.gov or contact Nicole Ongele, Office 

of Managing Director, Performance and 

Program Management, 202–418–2991, 

or by email to PRA@fcc.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This is a 

summary of the Commission’s Third 

Report and Order, FCC 23–88, adopted 

on October 19, 2023, and released on 

October 20, 2023. The full text of this 

document is available by downloading 

the text from the Commission’s website 

at: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/ 

attachments/FCC-23-88A1.pdf. 

This Third Report and Order 

addresses Wireless Emergency Alerts 

(WEA). Though this Third Report and 

Order is not specifically changing our 

Part 11 rules regarding the Emergency 

Alert System (EAS), the document 

references both the EAS and WEA 

dockets and we have historically sought 

comment on WEA in both dockets, 

including the underlying FNPRM and 

NPRM to which this Third Report and 

Order connects. The rules adopted here 

amend only Part 10 concerning WEA. 

We will consider improvements for the 

Emergency Alert System (EAS)—to 

include support for multilingual EAS— 

in a forthcoming item that will amend 

Part 11 of our rules. 

Final Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 

Analysis 

This document contains new and 

modified information collection 

requirements subject to the Paperwork 

Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), Public 

Law 104–13. It will be submitted to the 

Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB) for review under Section 3507(d) 

of the PRA. OMB, the general public, 

and other Federal agencies will be 

invited to comment on the new or 

modified information collection 

requirements contained in this 

proceeding. In addition, we note that 

pursuant to the Small Business 

Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public 

Law 107–198, see 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4), 

we previously sought specific comment 

on how the Commission might further 

reduce the information collection 

burden for small business concerns with 

fewer than 25 employees. 

Synopsis 

I. Third Report and Order 

1. It is essential that the public be able 

to receive in accessible language and 

format WEA Messages that are intended 

for them. It is also important that those 

who initiate these messages and those 

who rely upon them can access 

information about WEA’s availability 

and performance. Through the 

requirements the Commission adopts in 

the Third Report and Order, the 

Commission intends to help the 

millions of people with access and 

functional needs, including people who 

primarily speak a language other than 

English or Spanish and those with 

disabilities, better understand and take 

protective actions in response to WEA 

messages; improve people’s ability to 

understand and quickly take protective 

actions in response to WEAs that they 

receive; and provide the nation’s 

alerting authorities with the information 

they need to plan for resilient 

communications during disasters and 

use WEA with confidence and 

foreknowledge. These requirements will 

meaningfully improve WEA. The 

Commission also recognizes that even 

more can be done and to that end, will 

consider improvements for the 

Emergency Alert System (EAS)—to 

include support for multilingual EAS— 

in a forthcoming item. 

A. Making WEA Available to Millions of 

People Who Primarily Speak a Language 

Other Than English or Spanish and 

Accessible to People With Disabilities 

2. To expand WEA’s reach to millions 

of people who primarily speak a 

language other than English or Spanish 

who may not be able to understand the 

potentially life-saving alerts they 

receive, the Commission requires 

Participating CMS Providers to support 

multilingual WEA through the use of 

Alert Messages translated into the most 

common languages (referred to in this 

item as ‘‘templates’’). These templates 

would be pre-installed and stored on the 

mobile device itself. As described 

below, where an alerting authority 

chooses to send a multilingual Alert 

Message, the WEA-capable mobile 

device must be able to extract and 

display the relevant template in the 

subscriber’s default language, if 

available. See, 47 CFR 10.500(e). If the 

default language for a WEA-capable 

mobile device is set to a language that 

is not among those supported by 

templates, the WEA-capable device 

must present the English-language 

version of the Alert Message. 

3. The weight of the record supports 

expanding WEA’s language capabilities 


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through the use of templates. Some 

alerting authorities are already using 

templates to deliver alerts in multiple 

languages. The approach the 

Commission adopts in the Third Report 

and Order improves upon other 

available methods of multilingual WEA 

messages (e.g., through the use of an 

embedded reference that takes the 

recipient to a website with content in 

multiple languages), because the 

multilingual Alert Message will be 

displayed to the user by default. 

4. The implementation of multilingual 

WEA through the use of templates, as 

described in the Third Report and 

Order, integrates two features that are 

available today. First, it requires the 

establishment of templates. Letters from 

some of the largest Participating CMS 

Providers indicate that implementing 

template-based WEAs in multiple 

languages is feasible. Second, it requires 

templates to be stored in the device and 

triggered upon receipt of a WEA. As the 

Commission noted in the 2023 WEA 

FNPRM, Wireless Emergency Alerts, 

Amendments to Part 11 of the 

Commission’s Rules Regarding the 

Emergency Alert System, PS Docket No. 

15–91, 15–94, Further Notice of 

Proposed Rulemaking, FCC 23–30 (rel. 

Apr. 21, 2023) (2023 WEA FNPRM), 

through a partnership between 

ShakeAlert and Google, Android mobile 

devices are already able to display alert 

content pre-installed on mobile devices 

upon receipt of a signal from a network 

of seismic sensors. This application 

demonstrates how a template can be 

‘‘activated’’ by a data element included 

in Alert Message metadata, which 

would prompt the mobile device to 

display the relevant template alert 

message in the mobile device’s default 

language chosen by the consumer. 

5. Promoting multilingual WEA 

through templates will enhance the 

flexibility that alerting authorities have 

in communicating with their 

communities. There may be times where 

the benefit of delivering an Alert 

Message to the public as soon as 

possible outweighs the need for 

additional context that freeform text 

could provide. The Commission does 

not require alerting authorities to use 

templates, but require CMS Providers to 

support them should alerting authorities 

wish to use them at their discretion. The 

Commission defers to alerting 

authorities on how best to utilize these 

new WEA functions for their 

communities. 

6. The Commission further declines to 

require Participating CMS Providers to 

implement multilingual WEA using 

machine translation at this time. The 

Commission will continue to examine 

the feasibility of machine translation 

technologies and its application in 

connection with multilingual alerting. 

7. As a baseline, the Commission 

requires Participating CMS Providers’ 

WEA-capable mobile devices support 

templates in the 13 most commonly 

spoken languages in the United States, 

based on U.S. Census data, in addition 

to English templates. These languages 

include: Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, 

Vietnamese, Arabic, French, Korean, 

Russian, Haitian Creole, German, Hindi, 

Portuguese, and Italian. This action is 

consistent with the request of numerous 

members of Congress who wrote a letter 

urging the Commission to make WEA 

capable of multilingual alerting, noting 

that, without sending WEAs in 

languages beyond English and Spanish, 

‘‘[l]ives are put at stake without this 

crucial information about impending 

inclement weather events, stay-at-home 

orders, AMBER alerts, and other 

emergencies.’’ The Commission agrees 

that that the 13 languages for which we 

require support today would help make 

WEA content available to people who 

primarily speak a language other than 

English or Spanish for the first time, and 

that this change will most directly 

benefit those who have historically been 

underserved by WEA. The Commission 

believes that this action will mitigate a 

risk observed by researchers that 

individuals who primarily speak a 

language other than English or Spanish 

may not understand evacuation notices 

or instructions, raising the risk of harm. 

8. In addition, the Commission 

requires Participating CMS Providers’ 

WEA-capable mobile devices to support 

templates in ASL. The Commission 

received a robust record demonstrating 

that ASL templates would increase the 

effectiveness and accessibility of WEAs 

for people who are deaf and hard of 

hearing who use ASL. The Commission 

believes there is no adequate substitute 

for ASL for many individuals in the deaf 

and hard of hearing community, and 

unlike the other languages for which we 

require support, however, ASL is not a 

language to which a mobile device can 

be set. Because of this, the Commission 

requires Participating CMS Providers’ 

WEA-capable mobile devices to provide 

subscribers with the ability to opt-in to 

receive ASL alerts. The Commission 

recognizes that, unlike textual 

translations, English language Alert 

Messages would be translated into ASL 

by video. To avoid the risk that ASL 

templates could unnecessarily consume 

mobile device resources for individuals 

that do not need them, the rules allow 

the user’s voluntary selection of the 

option to receive WEAs in ASL to 

trigger the mobile device to download 

ASL templates to the device. WEAcapable mobile devices need not be sold 

with ASL templates pre-installed on 

them, so long as the templates are 

available to download in the manner 

described here 

9. A consumer’s choice to receive 

Alert Message templates in ASL should 

override the preferred language setting 

and the Alert Message should be 

extracted in ASL. This approach is 

necessary to give meaning to the 

consumer’s choice. Template-based ASL 

Alert Messages would function like 

other template-based Alert Messages in 

other respects. 

10. The Commission directs the 

Public Safety and Homeland Security 

Bureau (Bureau) to develop the specific 

implementation parameters for 

template-based multilingual alerting. In 

this regard, the Third Report and Order 

directs the Bureau to propose and seek 

comment on a set of emergency alert 

messages for support via template as 

they would be written in English, the 13 

most commonly spoken languages in the 

U.S. (Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, 

Vietnamese, Arabic, French, Korean, 

Russian, Haitian Creole, German, Hindi, 

Portuguese, and Italian), and ASL. In 

identifying this set of emergency alert 

messages for support via templates, the 

Bureau should seek comment on which 

messages are most commonly used by 

alerting authorities, as the 2023 WEA 

FNPRM contemplated, as well as those 

which may be most time-sensitive and 

thus critical for immediate 

comprehension. The Third Report and 

Order also directs the Bureau to seek 

comment on whether this functionality 

can be made available on all devices. 

11. The Third Report and Order 

further directs the Bureau to seek 

comment on whether the English 

version of the alert should be displayed 

in addition to the multilingual version 

of the alert, and whether templates can 

be customizable to incorporate eventspecific information. The Commission 

recognizes commenters in the record 

who suggest that the multilingual 

template-based alert be displayed 

together with the English-language alert 

that includes additional details, to 

promote a fuller understanding of the 

nature of the emergency. Through the 

incorporation of event-specific 

information into templates, we also seek 

to address concerns that static templatebased alerts may not be flexible enough 

to be useful, and would reduce an 

alerting authority’s ability to create 

regionally and culturally relevant 

messages. The Third Report and Order 

directs the Bureau to assess and 

determine the parameters for what is 


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feasible and would best serve the public 

interest in this regard. 

12. The Third Report and Order also 

directs the Bureau to seek comment on 

the costs of supporting additional 

languages after the 13 we identify today, 

as well as English and ASL. The 

Commission believes that, after the 

relevant stakeholders standardize and 

develop the technology necessary to 

support template-based multilingual 

WEA messages, the costs for adding 

additional language support via this 

process would be negligible, while the 

countervailing public interest benefits 

would be significant. There may be 

many large immigrant communities 

nationwide including some whose 

members have limited English 

proficiency, that are not included in 

these 13 languages. There is general 

agreement that additional languages 

should be supported, but there are 

different approaches for identifying 

those additional languages and the 

record did not coalesce around any 

particular languages or methods. The 

Third Report and Order directs the 

Bureau to seek comment on the best 

approach to determine which additional 

languages should be supported and 

what those languages should be. 

13. If minimally burdensome to 

implement, the Third Report and Order 

directs the Bureau to designate 

additional languages—beyond English, 

ASL, and the 13 most commonly spoken 

languages in the United States—that 

should be supported through templates. 

The Third Report and Order also directs 

the Bureau to seek comment on the 

timeframe in which these additional 

languages could be supported. The 

Commission also delegate authority to 

the Bureau to ask any additional 

questions relating to the development 

and deployment of template-based 

multilingual alerting that would clarify 

the technical processes by which such 

alerts would be developed, updated, 

and delivered. 

14. After an opportunity for comment, 

the Bureau will publish an Order in the 

Federal Register that establishes the 

specific implementation parameters for 

template-based multilingual alerting, 

including identification of the final set 

of emergency messages for multilingual 

WEA support, as well as their 

accompanying pre-scripted templates. 

By proceeding in this manner, the 

Commission creates an opportunity for 

interested parties to take an active role 

in ensuring we have selected the correct 

messages to support through templates 

and that we have accurately translated 

them. The Third Report and Order 

requires Participating CMS Providers to 

comply with the requirements to 

support template-based alerting, as well 

as English, ASL, and the 13 most 

common languages (Spanish, Chinese, 

Tagalog, Vietnamese, Arabic, French, 

Korean, Russian, Haitian Creole, 

German, Hindi, Portuguese, and Italian) 

within 30 months after the Bureau 

publishes its Order in the Federal 

Register. The Third Report and Order 

also directs the Bureau to identify the 

corresponding timeframe for supporting 

additional languages. 

15. The Commission believes that 30 

months is reasonable to implement the 

templates for the 13 languages, as well 

as English and ASL. As the Third Report 

and Order notes, both alert templates 

and the extraction of pre-loaded content 

on a mobile device to display an alert 

are functionalities that are already in 

use today. The Commission recognizes 

that additional work is necessary to 

combine these functionalities to support 

multilingual WEA templates and that 

implementation of this requirement will 

require updates to standards, design 

development, and deployment efforts. 

The Commission observes that mobile 

device manufacturers and OS vendors 

have previously proven capable of 

developing new functionalities for WEA 

that required standards development, 

design development, and additional 

deployment efforts within 30 months. 

The Third Report and Order does not 

adopt all the requirements that the 2023 

WEA FNPRM proposed, including the 

proposed performance reporting 

requirements. 

16. Applying the 30-month 

compliance timeframe to all 

Participating CMS Providers affords 

sufficient time to comply. Irrespective of 

whether small and rural carriers choose 

to allocate resources to participate in the 

standards process in which wireless 

industry has routinely engaged to 

support compliance with the 

Commission’s WEA requirements, the 

record suggests that this process can be 

completed within 12 months and will 

benefit all Participating CMS Providers 

equally. The remaining 18 months in 

the 30-month compliance timeframe 

include 12 months for software 

development and testing and 6 months 

for deployment in regular business 

cycles. The Commission believes that 

any delays that small and rural carriers 

may encounter in accessing the network 

equipment or mobile devices needed to 

support the requirements adopted today 

can be accommodated within the 6- 

month flexibility that we offer to all 

Participating CMS Providers. In 

proposing to require compliance within 

30 months of the rule’s publication in 

the Federal Register, the Commission 

used the same record-supported 

analysis as it has relied upon since 

2016. The Third Report and Order also 

notes that the Commission has 

historically not provided small 

businesses extra time to comply with its 

WEA rules. 

17. The Commission also agrees that 

languages should be maintained and 

reassessed to keep pace with evolving 

communities and technological 

capabilities. The Commission therefore 

anticipates that, in the years to come, as 

technology evolves and as language 

needs change, the Commission will 

continue to examine these issues to 

assess whether further adjustments are 

warranted. 

18. For a multilingual WEA to reach 

the intended recipient, the subscriber 

must first set the phone to the default 

language of their choice. Raising public 

awareness about this critical step is an 

important component of ensuring 

consumers are able to take advantage of 

multilingual alerts. Equally important is 

helping consumers understand how to 

set a WEA-capable device to a default 

language that enables them to receive 

multilingual alerts. The Commission 

encourages all stakeholders involved in 

the distribution of WEA (CMS 

providers, device retailers, alerting 

authorities, and consumer advocates) to 

conduct outreach to educate the public 

about setting their WEA-capable devices 

to their preferred language to receive 

multilingual alerts. The Third Report 

and Order also directs the Bureau to 

work with the Consumer and 

Governmental Affairs Bureau in creating 

a consumer guide that helps consumers 

learn about how to set their WEAenabled devices to their preferred 

language and making the guide available 

in the 13 languages that we are requiring 

for WEA today and ASL. 

B. Integrating Location-Aware Maps Into 

Alert Messages 

19. To help people personalize threats 

that potentially affect them, the Third 

Report and Order requires WEA-capable 

mobile devices to support the 

presentation of Alert Messages that link 

the recipient to a native mapping 

application on their mobile device to 

depict the recipient’s geographic 

position relative to the emergency 

incident. The map must include the 

following features: the overall 

geographic area, the contour of the area 

subject to the emergency alert within 

that geographic area, and the alert 

recipient’s location relative to these 

geographic areas. The Third Report and 

Order requires this functionality only on 

devices that have access to a mapping 

application, where the Alert Message’s 

target area is specified by a circle or 


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polygon, and where the device has 

enabled location services and has 

granted location permissions to its 

native mapping application. 

20. The record demonstrates a 

compelling public safety need for WEA 

messages to include location-aware 

maps. Location-aware maps will 

personalize threats so recipients will 

more quickly understand whether an 

alert applies to them and hasten 

protective actions. Providing such maps 

will spur people to take actions to 

protect their lives and property more 

quickly than they otherwise might, 

including in situations where a timely 

response can save lives. The 

Commission also agrees with 

commenters that location-aware maps 

could mitigate the effects of target area 

overshoot. 

21. The Third Report and Order finds 

that it is technically feasible to present 

location-aware maps, provided location 

services are enabled and permissions for 

its use are granted to the native mapping 

application. Notably, the Commission’s 

Communications Security, Reliability 

and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) 

VIII finds that it is technically feasible 

to integrate location-aware maps into 

WEA, stating that ‘‘if the Alert Area is 

defined [by a circle or polygon,] the 

WEA text could be displayed on the 

device along with a map of the Alert 

Area and an indication on the map of 

the recipient’s location.’’ Further, the 

Third Report and Order requires this 

feature only where the target area is 

described as a circle or polygon because, 

as CSRIC VIII noted in its recent report 

on the feasibility of location-aware maps 

in connection with WEA, pursuant to 

our rules and relevant standards, these 

are the only target area descriptions that 

are transmitted to mobile devices. 

Mobile devices will need these target 

area descriptions to graphically depict 

the Alert Message’s target area within 

the native mapping application. Such a 

mapping capability should only be 

required where location services are 

enabled and permissions for its use are 

granted to the native mapping 

application, because most modern 

devices require user permission for 

locations services to work. The 

Commission defers to industry to 

specify through the standards process 

exactly how WEA-capable mobile 

devices may connect the end user to the 

WEA-enabled map. The Third Report 

and Order only requires that 

Participating CMS Providers’ WEAcapable mobile devices clearly present 

the map or the option to access the map 

concurrent with the Alert Message. A 

few ways this might be achieved are for 

WEA-capable mobile devices to display 

a WEA-enabled map within the WEA 

message itself, to display a clickable 

link to a native mapping application 

within the WEA message, or to provide 

a link via a separate pop-up message 

that directs the user to the WEA-enabled 

map. No additional information would 

need to be broadcast over CMS Provider 

infrastructure to enable this 

functionality under any of these 

approaches. Accordingly, whereas the 

Commission proposed to codify this 

requirement as an Alert Message 

requirement for Participating CMS 

Providers, the record shows that the 

only changes needed to effectuate this 

functionality are in the mobile device, 

so the Third Report and Order codifies 

it as an equipment requirement instead. 

See Figure 1 below for an example of 

how a WEA location-aware map could 

look. 


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22. Figure 1 is based on the look and 

feel of a common native mapping 

application using default settings. The 

large circle represents the Alert 

Message’s geographic target area and the 

small dot with a lighter shaded 

uncertainty area around it represents the 

user’s location. Consumers regularly use 

the mapping applications in which the 

WEA target areas will be presented and 

are already familiar with how those 

applications display user location 

relative to geographic features. 

23. The Third Report and Order 

requires Participating CMS Providers to 

comply with this requirement 36 

months from the rule’s publication in 

the Federal Register, as proposed. The 

Commission finds that 36 months 

allows more than sufficient time for 

Participating CMS Providers to 

complete of all necessary steps to make 

location-aware maps available to their 

subscribers, including technical design, 

standards development, testing, and 

deployment. No commenter 

demonstrated that compliance in this 

timeframe would be a technological 

impossibility. Because the Alliance for 

Telecommunications Industry Solutions 

(ATIS) has already begun this work and 

the Commission believes this 

requirement is less complex than others 

the Third Report and Order has required 

to be implemented in similar 

timeframes, the Commission believe 

that 30 months would be sufficient, 

however, the Third Report and Order 

grants Participating CMS Providers an 

additional six months to implement 

mapping to accommodate their 

concerns. 

24. A WEA-enabled map may not be 

accessible to screen readers, which 

means the map may not be useful to 

blind and low vision individuals. To 

ensure that this mapping capability is 

accessible to as many people as possible 

and that the inclusion of maps enhances 

the effectiveness of WEA, the Third 

Report and Order encourages alerting 

authorities to continue to include a textbased description of the Alert Message’s 

target area in their Alert Message. This 

is of service to a broad range of users, 

including those individuals who choose 

not to enable location services or grant 

location permissions to their device’s 

native mapping application, or those 

who use legacy devices without such an 

application. This will contribute to the 

overall clarity of the Alert Message and 

enable those with vision impairments 

and other access and function needs to 

understand the geographic area affected 

by an emergency by using screen 

readers to understand the Alert 

Message’s text. The Commission also 

expects industry to consult with mobile 

accessibility experts in the process of 

standardizing and developing this 

functionality to determine whether 

there are advances in technology that 

would allow location information in the 

map, as well as the user’s location, to be 

accessible to screen readers. 

C. WEA Performance and Public 

Awareness Testing 

25. To allow alerting authorities to 

develop a better understanding of how 

WEA operates within their unique 

jurisdictions and circumstances and to 

engage in important public awareness 

exercises, the Third Report and Order 

requires Participating CMS Providers to 

support up to two end-to-end WEA 

tests, per county (or county equivalent), 


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per year, that consumers receive by 

default. Alerting authorities may 

continue to use any Alert Message 

classification for these tests. A WEA 

Performance and Public Awareness Test 

is not a new or discrete Alert Message 

classification. In advance of conducting 

such a ‘‘WEA Performance and Public 

Awareness Test,’’ an alerting authority 

must do the following: (1) conduct 

outreach and notify the public in 

advance of the planned WEA test and 

that no emergency is, in fact, occurring; 

(2) include in its test message that the 

alert is ‘‘only a test’’; (3) coordinate the 

test among Participating CMS Providers 

that serve the geographic area targeted 

by the test, State, local, and Tribal 

emergency authorities, relevant State 

Emergency Communications 

Committees (SECCs), and first responder 

organizations and (4) provide 

notification to the public in widely 

accessible formats that the test is only 

a test and is not a warning about an 

actual emergency. Participating CMS 

Providers and alerting authorities 

should consider notifying domestic 

violence support organizations, so that 

these organizations can in turn advise 

those at risk who may have secret 

phones to turn off their phones in 

advance of the test. The Third Report 

and Order observes that these 

conditions also attend alerting 

authorities’ conduct of EAS ‘‘Live Code’’ 

Tests, which the public receives by 

default. Commenters state that these 

conditions are also reasonable to apply 

in the WEA context. Permitting alerting 

authorities to conduct limited WEA 

Performance and Public Awareness 

Testing as a matter of course will boost 

alerting authority and consumer 

confidence in WEA, allow alerting 

authorities to determine if the 

communications tools they wish to use, 

such as website hyperlinks embedded in 

WEA messages, will function as 

intended when needed, and provide 

WEA stakeholders with a way to assess 

Participating CMS Providers’ 

performance of WEA. WEA Performance 

and Public Awareness Tests will also 

allow alerting authorities to raise 

awareness about the types of disasters to 

which a region is susceptible and 

provide alerting authorities with the 

ability to verify how changes in wireless 

providers’ service offerings affect the 

local availability of WEA. By making it 

easier for alerting authorities to conduct 

effective WEA tests, this action will 

make WEA more effective overall. 

26. The Third Report and Order limits 

the number of WEA Performance and 

Public Awareness Tests that 

Participating CMS Providers must 

support each year by county or county 

equivalent (for example, by Tribal land), 

rather than by alerting authority, as 

proposed. Incidental overshoot into a 

county due to another county’s test does 

not count against the number of tests a 

county is allowed to conduct that 

intentionally cover that county. 

27. However, limiting the number of 

permissible tests by alerting authority 

may be insufficient to mitigate the risk 

of alerting fatigue because people in 

counties over which alerting authorities 

have overlapping jurisdictions could 

receive a large number of additional 

WEA tests each year. The Third Report 

and Order recognizes that public-facing 

tests can potentially result in consumers 

opting out of WEA or diminish the 

perceived urgency of responding to 

emergency alerts. The outreach that the 

Third Report and Order requires 

alerting authorities to undertake in 

advance of issuing a WEA Performance 

and Public Awareness Test also helps to 

address commenters’ concerns about 

alert fatigue. The Third Report and 

Order distinguishes the negative affect 

that erroneous WEA tests can have on 

public confidence in WEA from WEA 

Performance and Public Awareness 

Tests issued pursuant to the 

requirements adopted today. Alerting 

authorities have the discretion and 

judgment to test WEA in a way that 

serves the interests of their 

communities. 

28. With these revisions, the 

Commission removes regulatory 

obstacles to WEA performance testing 

and reduce time and cost burdens on 

alert originators by eliminating the need 

to obtain a waiver. Today, alerting 

authorities may conduct end-to-end 

tests of the WEA system only using a 

State/Local WEA Test, which the public 

does not receive by default. Instead, 

only those people who affirmatively opt 

in to receive State/Local WEA tests will 

receive them. Alerting authorities 

currently must obtain a waiver to 

conduct WEA tests that the public 

receives by default, which can be 

cumbersome and place an unnecessary 

administrative burden on alerting 

authorities and CMS Providers. By 

doing away with this paperwork 

requirement, the Third Report and 

Order enables alerting authorities to 

more easily access this important tool. 

29. The Commission’s experience 

with ‘‘Live Code’’ EAS tests over the 

years suggests that two WEA 

Performance and Public Awareness 

Tests per year is sufficient to meet 

alerting authorities’ public safety 

objectives and that the preconditions 

pursuant to which they are issued are 

effective at limiting the potential for 

public confusion. The Commission has 

found that effective public awareness 

testing helps the public to understand 

how to respond to WEAs in the event 

of an actual emergency. Verizon states 

that public-facing tests can be a valuable 

public education tool. Alert originators 

who wish to conduct additional testing 

may continue to utilize the State/Local 

WEA test code, which allows alert 

originators to send test messages only to 

those who proactively opt in to receive 

them. As the Commission noted in the 

2023 WEA FNPRM, the Commission 

continues to believe that State/Local 

WEA Tests are valuable tools for system 

readiness testing and proficiency 

training. To the extent State/Local WEA 

Tests are used for proficiency training 

and alerting authorities’ system checks, 

the fact that the public does not receive 

State/Local WEA Tests by default is 

beneficial. 

30. Alerting authorities can use WEA 

Performance and Public Awareness 

Tests as a tool to gather data about how 

WEA works in practice, as the 

Commission has done repeatedly over 

the years. Multiple alerting authorities 

highlight the importance of receiving 

data about how WEA performs in their 

local jurisdictions. State/Local WEA 

Tests may be less effective than WEA 

Performance and Public Awareness 

Tests for this purpose because the 

amount of data that transmission of a 

State/Local WEA Test can generate is 

limited by the number of people within 

the target area that have affirmatively 

opted in to receive tests of this type. To 

further facilitate WEA testing for this 

purpose, the Commission offers alerting 

authorities access to a Commission 

survey instrument that has proven 

effective at gathering data about WEA’s 

reliability, accuracy, and speed. The 

Third Report and Order directs the 

Bureau to develop translations of the 

survey materials in the 13 languages we 

require Participating CMS Providers to 

support for multilingual alerting as well 

as ASL. 

31. While the Commission continues 

to evaluate the record on our proposed 

performance reporting requirements, the 

Commission believe that this revision of 

our testing rules will at least help 

address alerting authorities’ immediate 

needs for WEA performance information 

in their jurisdictions. 

32. The Third Report and Order 

requires Participating CMS Providers to 

comply with this requirement within 30 

days of the Federal Register publication 

of notice that OMB has completed its 

review of these information collection 

requirements, as proposed. No 

commenter objected to this proposal. 


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D. Establishing a WEA Database for 

Availability Reporting 

33. To equip alerting authorities with 

information that allows them to prepare 

for reliable emergency communications 

during disasters, the Third Report and 

Order requires all CMS Providers to 

refresh their WEA election status by 

filing this information in an electronic 

database hosted by the Commission. 

The WEA Database will be an 

interactive portal where CMS Providers 

submit information about the 

availability of WEA on their networks. 

CMS Providers are required to attest 

whether they participate in WEA ‘‘in 

whole’’ (meaning that they have ‘‘agreed 

to transmit WEA Messages in a manner 

consistent with the technical standards, 

protocols, procedures, and other 

technical requirements implemented by 

the Commission in the entirety of their 

geographic service area,’’ and that all 

mobile devices that they offer at the 

point of sale are WEA-capable), ‘‘in 

part’’ (meaning that that they offer WEA 

but the geographic service area 

condition does not apply, the mobile 

device condition does not apply, or 

both), or they may elect not to 

participate. Currently, CMS Providers 

have filed their WEA election 

attestations in a static format in a 

Commission docket, and many have not 

been updated since they were first filed 

over a decade ago. 

34. The WEA Database will aggregate 

WEA participation information in one 

location for ease of access and 

understanding, increasing its utility for 

emergency planning purposes and for 

the public. Alerting authorities believe 

they need nuanced information about 

WEA’s availability, specifically if WEA 

is not available in every CMS network 

in their alert and warning jurisdiction or 

in every geographic area in their alert 

and warning jurisdiction, so that they 

can make alternative arrangements to 

deliver emergency communications. 

While the Third Report and Order 

acknowledges that much of the 

information that the WEA Database will 

contain is already publicly available, the 

record shows that we can significantly 

increase this information’s utility by 

aggregating it in one place. To the extent 

that this information is already publicly 

available, however, the Commission 

agrees that it will be minimally 

burdensome to provide. Aggregating this 

information in the WEA Database will 

also directly benefit consumers. 

Accordingly, the Commission finds that 

this requirement has potential to help 

people to protect their lives and 

property by encouraging and promoting 

the use of smartphones as emergency 

preparedness tools. 

35. The Third Report and Order 

requires each CMS Provider to disclose 

the entities on behalf of which it files its 

election, irrespective of whether it elects 

to participate in WEA. WEA election 

attestation disclosures must include (a) 

the name and WEA participation of the 

CMS Provider; (b) the name and WEA 

participation status of any subsidiary 

companies on behalf of which the CMS 

Provider’s election is filed, including 

when the subsidiary company is a 

Mobile Virtual Network Operator 

(MVNO) or wireless reseller whollyowned or operated by the CMS 

Provider; (c) any ‘‘doing business as’’ 

names under which the CMS Provider 

or its subsidiaries offer wireless service 

to the public. The Commission agrees 

with the King County Emergency 

Management that disclosing all of the 

names under which a CMS Provider 

does business is necessary for 

consumers to meaningfully access the 

information that the WEA Database 

contains because consumers will often 

only know a corporate entity by the 

name under which it markets service. 

Similarly, the Commission finds that 

requiring CMS Providers to separately 

identify its WEA participation status 

and that of each of its subsidiary entities 

is necessary to allow consumers to 

understand potential nuances in WEA 

participation among subsidiary entities 

owned or controlled by the same parent 

company (i.e., when the CMS Provider’s 

participation status is different from an 

entity on behalf of which they file (e.g., 

where one participates in WEA ‘‘in 

whole’’ and the other ‘‘in part’’)). 

36. To empower alerting authorities 

with information about where WEA is 

and is not available within their 

communities, the Third Report and 

Order requires Participating CMS 

Providers to disclose the geographic 

areas in which they offer WEA. CMS 

Providers that offer WEA in an area that 

is geographically coextensive with their 

wireless voice coverage area may satisfy 

this requirement by simply attesting to 

that fact. For each such provider, the 

Commission will use the Graphical 

Information System (GIS) voice coverage 

area map that the provider has already 

submitted to the Commission in 

furtherance of their obligations to the 

Commission’s Broadband Data 

Collection. We agree with AT&T that 

‘‘[t]he use of the voice GIS coverage 

areas would minimize the reporting 

burden on CMSPs while providing Alert 

Originators with relevant information 

about the availability of WEA’’ because 

many CMS Providers likely already 

maintain information about their 

network coverage in GIS format. Verizon 

believes that most Participating CMS 

Providers do offer WEA in a geographic 

area that is coextensive with their 

wireless voice coverage area. For all 

such providers, the burden of 

compliance with this requirement will 

be negligible. 

37. CMS Providers that offer WEA in 

an area that is not co-extensive with 

their wireless voice coverage area must 

submit a geospatial data file compatible 

with the WEA Database describing their 

WEA coverage area to satisfy this 

requirement. The Commission disagrees 

with Verizon and AT&T that the 

information about Participating CMS 

Providers’ wireless coverage areas that 

is publicly available today, including 

via the Commission’s National 

Broadband Map, is sufficient to inform 

alerting authorities’ use of WEA. CMS 

Providers that choose to participate in 

WEA in part do not attest that their 

WEA service area is coextensive with 

their wireless voice coverage area. 

Without the additional attestation that 

the WEA Database will elicit, it would 

therefore be unreasonable for an alerting 

authority to infer that any information 

that these CMS Providers make 

available about their wireless voice 

coverage area is representative of their 

WEA service area. 

38. The Third Report and Order 

requires Participating CMS Providers to 

complete their WEA election attestation 

by submitting to the WEA Database a 

list of all the mobile devices they offer 

at the point of sale, indicating for each 

such device whether it is WEA-capable. 

Participating CMS Providers will be able 

to fulfil this obligation by listing the 

devices that they sell and their WEA 

capabilities via the WEA Database’s 

online interface. 

39. Communities can only benefit 

from the many WEA enhancements that 

the Commission has required 

Participating CMS Providers to support 

to the extent that deployed mobile 

devices support them. Creating an 

aggregated account of the WEA 

capabilities of the mobile devices that 

Participating CMS Providers sell will 

allow alerting authorities to understand 

the extent to which their communities 

will benefit from messages crafted to 

take advantage of modern WEA 

functionalities, such as a longer, 360- 

character version of an Alert Message, a 

Spanish-language version of an Alert 

Message, or clickable hyperlinks. 

According to New York City Emergency 

Management (NYCEM), this information 

would ‘‘allow for jurisdictions to 

supplement the alert with additional 

messaging as needed.’’ The Association 

of Public-Safety Communications 


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Officials, Inc. (APCO) observes that this, 

in turn, will enable alerting authorities 

to use WEA more effectively as one 

emergency communications tool among 

many at their disposal. For these 

reasons, the Commission does not share 

AT&T’s concern that ‘‘the Commission’s 

WEA Database is likely to suffer from 

the same underutilization as the 

Commission’s database of hearing-aid 

compatible devices.’’ Further, whereas 

the Hearing-Aid Compatible database is 

primarily intended to be consumerfacing (and each consumer is likely 

most concerned with the compatibility 

of devices that they are personally 

considering for purchase from a 

particular provider), the publication of 

the WEA data that will be collected in 

the WEA Database is primarily intended 

for use by alerting authorities that need 

to have the wholistic view of the WEA 

capabilities of mobile devices in use in 

their communities that the WEA 

Database will provide. 

40. The Third Report and Order 

directs the Bureau, in coordination with 

the Wireless Telecommunications 

Bureau and the Office of Economics and 

Analytics, to implement the 

requirements of this collection and the 

publication of the data collected. The 

Third Report and Order further directs 

the Bureau to publish information about 

how Participating CMS Providers will 

be able to submit their data and to 

announce when the WEA Database is 

ready to accept filings. The Third Report 

and Order requires all CMS Providers, 

irrespective of whether they have 

already submitted a WEA election 

attestation in the WEA election docket, 

to refresh their elections to participate 

in WEA using the WEA Database within 

90 days of the Bureau’s publication of 

a public notice announcing (1) OMB 

approval of any new information 

collection requirements or (2) that the 

WEA Database is ready to accept filings, 

whichever is later. 

41. Most CMS Providers have not 

updated their election to transmit alert 

messages since filing their initial 

election in 2008. As a result, the 

Commission is concerned that many 

WEA elections could now be outdated 

and do not accurately reflect WEA’s 

current availability. The Commission 

agrees with Verizon that ‘‘refreshing 

service provider elections are sensible, 

given the time that has lapsed since 

service providers submitted their 

elections over a decade ago and the 

many intervening changes in the 

wireless industry.’’ The Third Report 

and Order also allows Participating 

CMS Providers to use the WEA Database 

to notify the Commission of any change 

of their election to participate in WEA, 

whether that change be an increase or 

decrease in WEA participation. 

Participating CMS Providers must 

continue to notify new and existing 

subscribers of their withdrawal using 

the specific notification language 

required by the rules, which triggers a 

subscriber’s right to terminate their 

subscription without penalty or early 

termination fee. A CMS Provider 

withdraws from WEA if its participation 

status changes from ‘‘in whole’’ to ‘‘in 

part’’ or ‘‘no’’ or if it changes its 

participation status from ‘‘in part’’ to 

‘‘no.’’ The Commission proposed to 

require compliance with this 

requirement within 30 days of the 

publication of this public notice. On our 

own initiative, however, the Third 

Report and Order extends this 

compliance timeframe to 90 days to 

allow Participating CMS Providers the 

60-days’ notice that our rules require 

them to provide to their subscribers in 

advance of any withdrawal of their 

WEA participation. After refreshing 

their elections, the Third Report and 

Order requires Participating CMS 

Providers to update their WEA election 

information in the WEA Database 

biannually as with the Commission’s 

Broadband Data Collection (BDC). The 

Third Report and Order directs the 

Bureau to assess, in coordination with 

the Commission’s Wireless 

Telecommunications Bureau and Office 

of Economics and Analytics the extent 

to which updates to geospatial voice 

coverage data in the Broadband Data 

Collection can automatically populate 

in the WEA Database, reducing the 

potential burden of compliance with 

this requirement. While the FNPRM 

proposed for this information to be 

updated within 30 days of any change 

to a Participating CMS Provider’s WEA 

coverage areas or the WEA capabilities 

of the mobile devices it sells, the 

Commission is persuaded that filing 

every 6 months (biannually) is 

consistent with our BDC requirements 

would accomplish our goals without 

unduly burdening Participating CMS 

Providers. 

42. The Commission is persuaded not 

to require Participating CMS Providers 

to provide an account of their roaming 

partners via the WEA Database at this 

time. The Commission agrees that 

‘‘given the comprehensive roaming 

arrangements across the industry, 

maintaining this information would be 

too unwieldy for individual providers 

and result in confusing, duplicative 

information for consumers.’’ 

43. The Commission is also persuaded 

not to require CMS Providers to attest to 

the WEA capabilities of resellers of their 

facilities-based services at this time, 

unless those resellers are wholly-owned 

or controlled by the CMS Provider. The 

Third Report and Order agrees that 

Participating CMS Providers should not 

be required to provide information to 

which they may not have access, such 

as participation information for entities 

they do not control. The record 

demonstrates that Participating CMS 

Providers may not have access to WEA 

participation information about Mobile 

Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) or 

wireless resellers, even when they have 

a direct business relationship with such 

entities. According to Verizon, 

‘‘[f]acilities-based providers do not 

directly control and may not have direct 

visibility into the WEA capabilities of 

. . . MVNO/resellers’ customer devices, 

or all the particular facilities-based 

providers with whom the MVNO/ 

reseller has a business relationship,’’ 

and that ‘‘CMS Providers do not 

ordinarily have visibility into whether a 

MVNO/reseller’s mobile devices are 

WEA-capable or the extent to which an 

MVNO/reseller is provisioning its own 

wireless RAN facilities, for example 

through CBRS spectrum.’’ 

44. The Third Report and Order also 

agrees with Verizon, however, that ‘‘it is 

reasonable and appropriate for MVNO/ 

resellers to publicly disclose the WEA 

capabilities of the devices and the 

facilities-based services they directly 

offer to their own customers’’ because of 

their significant role in the wireless 

marketplace. The Third Report and 

Order observe that many MVNOs and 

wireless resellers have elected to 

participate in WEA. The Commission 

encourages these entities to use the 

WEA Database to keep their WEA 

election information up to date so that 

alerting authorities and consumers can 

be informed about the extent to which 

they should expect WEAs to be 

delivered via their networks. 

45. The Third Report and Order 

determines that information submitted 

to the WEA Database under the rules 

does not warrant confidential treatment 

and should be available to the public, as 

proposed. The Commission observes 

that the WEA availability information 

that Participating CMS Providers would 

submit to the WEA Database is already 

publicly available, although not 

aggregated with other WEA information. 

The information that Participating CMS 

Providers would supply to the WEA 

Database about their WEA coverage area 

is already publicly available through the 

National Broadband Map, which makes 

available for download the mobile voice 

coverage areas collected through the 

Broadband Data Collection. Similarly, 

many Participating CMS Providers 

already make publicly available 


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information about the WEA-capable 

mobile devices that they offer at the 

point of sale. The Commission does not 

believe that the public availability of 

this information raises any concerns 

about national security or competitive 

sensitivity, and it would not include 

any personally identifiable information 

or consumer proprietary network 

information. No commenter objected to 

this proposal. 

E. Legal Authority 

46. The Third Report and Order finds 

that the Commission has ample legal 

basis to adopt the targeted revisions to 

the rules adopted that are designed to 

make WEA more accessible to a wider 

range of people, including members of 

the public who primarily speak a 

language other than English or Spanish 

and people with disabilities. These 

amendments are grounded in the 

Commission’s authority under the 

Communications Act of 1934, as 

amended, as well as the WARN Act. The 

Third Report and Order rejects 

commenters’ assertions to the contrary. 

47. The Competitive Carrier 

Association (CCA) contends that there 

are limits on the Commission’s 

authority to adopt enhancements to the 

system given the timing specifications 

in the WARN Act and its provision that 

the Commission ‘‘shall have no 

rulemaking authority under this 

chapter, except as provided in 

paragraphs (a), (b), (c), and (f).’’ See 47 

U.S.C. 1201(a) and (d). 

48. Consistent with the WARN Act, 

WEA ‘‘enable[s] commercial mobile 

service alerting capability for 

commercial mobile service providers 

that voluntarily elect to transmit 

emergency alerts.’’ The WEA system is 

a voluntary program designed to deliver 

life-saving emergency information to the 

public, and the Commission has worked 

hard to build enhancements into the 

system since it was created. The system 

now includes embedded links to 

additional information, Spanishlanguage alerts, and geotargeting 

designed to help messages reach the 

intended audience that needs the 

information to act in an emergency. 

Today’s improvements, which will help 

reach audiences that speak additional 

languages or that have disabilities that 

could limit WEA’s utility in its present 

form, build on these prior efforts. Those 

providers opting to support the system 

must be prepared to accommodate these 

enhancements and to follow the rules 

that the Commission adopts. 

49. With that important context in 

mind, the Commission finds no merit in 

CCA’s contentions. Contrary to CCA’s 

view, the time periods set out in 

paragraphs (a), (b), and (c) only 

established deadlines for initial actions 

on the directives described in those 

provisions. Moreover, paragraph (f), 

which is also referenced in paragraph 

(d), contains no deadline for the 

Commission’s regulatory authority over 

WEA technical testing. Under CCA’s 

interpretation of the statute, the 

Commissoin’s WEA rulemaking 

authority would have lapsed after 

establishing initial rules in 2008; yet 

this reading is inconsistent with 

Congress’s amendment of the WARN 

Act in 2021, when it directed the 

Commission to examine the feasibility 

of expanding the reach of emergency 

alerts using new technologies. In fact, a 

bipartisan group of lawmakers 

representing both chambers of Congress 

has expressed keen interest in 

continuing to upgrade WEA to support 

multilingual capabilities. Over time, the 

Commission’s enhancements to WEA 

and Congress’s recognition of the 

importance of the system, including 

those enhancements, reflect Congress’s 

endorsement of how the Commission 

was exercising its authority under the 

WARN Act. 

50. In any event, however, the 

Commission’s legal authority 

concerning emergency alerts is based 

not solely on the provisions of the 

WARN Act but also on several 

provisions of the Communications Act, 

which is the backdrop against which 

Congress adopted the WARN Act. In 

particular, section 303(b) directs the 

Commission to ‘‘[p]rescribe the nature 

of the service to be rendered’’ by 

licensees. The rule changes in the Third 

Report and Order do just that—lay 

down rules about the nature of services 

to be rendered by Participating CMS 

Providers. They do so pursuant to the 

Commission’s finding that the ‘‘public 

convenience, interest, or necessity 

requires’’ doing so and in fulfillment of 

the statutory purpose of ‘‘promoting 

safety of life and property through the 

use of wire and radio communications.’’ 

To the extent that section 602(d) of the 

WARN Act limits the Commission’s 

rulemaking authority, it does so only as 

to the authority granted under that Act 

and does not limit the Commission’s 

preexisting and well-established 

authority under the Communications 

Act. To be clear, the phrase ‘‘this 

chapter’’ in 47 U.S.C. 1201 refers to 

chapter 11 of title 47 of the United 

States Code and corresponds to the 

phrase ‘‘this title’’ in the original 

Security and Accountability for Every 

Port Act, which referred to title VI 

thereof, i.e., the WARN Act. 

F. Assessing the Benefits and Costs 

51. The Commission finds that the 

benefits from the improvements made to 

WEA by the Third Report and Order 

exceed their cost. In the 2023 WEA 

FNPRM, the Commission estimated that 

the proposed rules would result in an 

industry-wide, one-time compliance 

cost of $39.9 million and an annually 

recurring cost of $422,500 to update the 

WEA standards and software necessary 

to comply with the rules adopted in this 

Report and Order. While the Third 

Report and Order does not adopt all the 

2023 WEA FNPRM’s proposals, such as 

including thumbnail images, modifying 

the attention signal and vibration 

cadence capabilities, or requiring any 

performance-related benchmarking or 

reporting, the Commission believes that 

the 2023 WEA FNPRM’s estimate 

remains a reasonable ceiling for the cost 

of compliance with the rules adopted in 

the Third Report and Order. The 

activities in which industry will engage 

to comply with the requirements we 

adopt today (the creation and revision of 

standards and the development and 

testing of software) are not easily 

amenable to subdivision based on lines 

of text written or lines of code 

programmed. While the WEA standards 

will undoubtedly require less revision 

and less code will need to be written to 

comply with the requirements adopted 

by the Third Report and Order, the 

Commission does not attempt to 

quantify the extent of cost reduction 

that will result. The record reflects the 

significant benefits arising from WEA 

support for additional functionalities, 

including enhancing language support 

and providing location-aware maps. 

These enhanced functionalities of WEA 

will make WEAs comprehensible for 

some language communities for the first 

time, helping to keep these vulnerable 

communities safer during disasters. 

These enhancements will also 

encourage consumers to remain optedin to receiving WEA messages and 

incentivize emergency managers that are 

currently not alerting authorities to 

become authorized with FEMA to use 

WEA as a tool for providing information 

in times of emergencies. With increased 

participation by both consumers and 

emergency managers, WEAs will be 

more likely to be both sent and received, 

leading to an incremental increase in 

lives saved, injuries prevented, and 

reductions in the cost of deploying first 

responders. The Commission bases its 

assessment of costs on the quantitative 

framework on which the Commission 

relied in the 2023 WEA FNPRM. The 

Commission sought comment on the 

costs and benefits of our proposed rules 


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in the 2023 WEA FNPRM, but received 

a sparse record in response, including 

no dollar figure estimates. Although 

most of the benefits are difficult to 

quantify, the Commission believes they 

outweigh the overall costs of the 

adopted rules. 

52. The Commission believes that the 

rules adopted will result in benefits 

measurable in terms of lives saved and 

injuries and property damage prevented. 

The Commission agrees with Verizon 

that these rule changes could offer 

‘‘tangible safety benefits to consumers 

and alert originators.’’ According to 

CTIA and Southern Communications 

Services, Inc. d/b/a Southern Linc 

(Southern Linc), WEA has become one 

of the most effective and reliable alert 

and warning tools for public safety and 

the public. The requirements adopted in 

the Third Report and Order will both 

promote the availability of those 

benefits for a greater number of people 

and enhance their benefit for those for 

whom they were already available. The 

Commission also recognizes that it is 

difficult to assign precise dollar values 

to changes to WEA that improve the 

public’s safety, life, and health. 

53. Making WEA Accessible to 

Millions of People Who Primarily Speak 

a Language Other Than English or 

Spanish. Currently, the 76 CMS 

Providers participating in WEA send 

alerts to 75% of mobile phones in the 

country. Among the 26 million people 

who do not primarily speak English or 

Spanish, nearly 15.4 million speak 

primarily one of the 12 languages that 

we integrate into the WEA system in 

addition to English and Spanish. 

Assuming 66% of these individuals are 

covered by the WEA system, 

approximately 11.5 million people who 

have been receiving WEA messages in 

languages they may have difficulty 

comprehending would understand the 

content of WEA messages under the 

proposed WEA language support. The 

Commission agrees with Verizon that 

‘‘the public safety benefits to nonEnglish-speaking consumers and 

communities by improving access to 

life-saving information are self-evident.’’ 

Even if alerts reach just 1% of this 

population per year (i.e., roughly 

150,000 people) the potential of WEA to 

prevent property damage, injuries, and 

deaths could be enormous. Further, over 

12 million people are with a hearing 

difficulty. Requiring Participating CMS 

Providers to provide subscribers with 

the ability to opt-in to receive ASL alerts 

would help effectively prevent property 

damages, injuries, and loss of life for 

these individuals who are deaf or hardof-hearing. 

54. Integrating Location-Aware Maps 

into Alert Messages. Alert messages that 

link the recipient to a native mapping 

application would help the public to 

personalize alerts, allowing them to 

better understand the geographic area 

under threat and their location relative 

to it. The Commission agrees with ATIS 

and NYCEM that location-aware maps 

will provide the public with a better 

understanding of the emergency alerts 

they receive. It follows that this will 

likely cause recipients to take protective 

action more quickly than they otherwise 

would. This requirement will yield 

particular benefits in the most timesensitive emergencies, such as 

earthquakes and wildfires, where every 

second can count. 

55. WEA Performance and Public 

Awareness Tests. The Commission 

agrees with AT&T and Verizon, among 

others, that adopting rules to permit 

alerting authorities to conduct up to two 

WEA Performance and Public 

Awareness Tests per year may improve 

alerting authorities’ awareness of and 

confidence in WEA and provide alerting 

authorities with a tool to improve 

consumer education about and 

confidence in WEA. This awareness and 

education will result in more prompt 

and effective public response to WEAs 

when issued, potentially saving lives, 

protecting property, and reducing the 

cost of deploying first responders. 

Further, this rule may encourage more 

alerting authorities to participate in 

WEA due to promoting a better 

understanding of it, and with increased 

participation by alerting authorities, 

more of the public will benefit from the 

lifesaving information conveyed by 

WEA. The Commission also agrees with 

APCO that ‘‘[t]esting is fundamental to 

public safety communications and will 

improve the system’s trustworthiness 

and effectiveness.’’ The Commission 

further believes harmonizing WEA and 

EAS test rules would simplify alerting 

authorities’ efforts to test and exercise 

their public alert and warning capability 

and allow EAS and WEA tests to be 

more closely and easily coordinated. 

56. Establishing a WEA Database for 

Availability Reporting. The Third Report 

and Order determines that the rules 

establishing a WEA Database and 

requiring CMS Providers to refresh their 

WEA participation election will equip 

alerting authorities with information 

they need to plan for reliable 

communications during disasters and 

raise their confidence in WEA. The 

Commission agrees with alerting 

authorities that the WEA Database will 

allow them to know both where WEA is 

and is not available within their alert 

and warning jurisdictions, allowing 

them to maximize the public safety 

value derived from other emergency 

communications tools. Creating an 

aggregated account of the WEA 

capabilities of the mobile devices that 

Participating CMS Providers sell will 

also allow alerting authorities to 

understand the extent to which their 

communities will benefit from messages 

crafted to take advantage of modern 

WEA functionalities, such as a longer, 

360-character version of an Alert 

Message, a Spanish-language version of 

an Alert Message, or clickable 

hyperlinks. The Commission also agrees 

with T-Mobile that ‘‘this information 

will help the public and alert originators 

understanding which wireless providers 

support WEA, where the service is 

available, and what handsets can be 

obtained to reap the full benefits of 

WEA.’’ 

57. The Third Report and Order 

estimates that the rules adopted in the 

Third Report and Order could result in 

an industry-wide, one-time compliance 

cost of, at most, $42.4 million to update 

the WEA standards and software 

necessary to comply with the rules 

adopted in this Third Report and Order 

and an annually recurring cost of 

$422,500 for recordkeeping and 

reporting. In the Third Report and 

Order, the Commission takes 

appropriate steps to ensure that these 

costs are not unduly burdensome. At the 

same time, as the Commission observed 

in the 2023 WEA FNPRM, CMS 

Providers’ participation in WEA is 

voluntary. Any Participating CMS 

Provider that does not wish to comply 

with the rules we adopt today may 

withdraw their election to participate in 

WEA without penalty, and incur no 

implementation costs as a result. 

58. Consistent with prior estimates, 

the one-time cost of $42.4 million to 

update the WEA standards and software 

necessary to comply with the proposals 

in the Further Notice includes 

approximately a $845,000 to update 

applicable WEA standards and 

approximately a $41.5 million to update 

applicable software. The Third Report 

and Order quantifies the $845,000 cost 

of modifying standards as the annual 

compensation for 30 network engineers 

compensated at the national average 

wage for their field ($$62.25/hour), plus 

a 45% mark-up for benefits ($28.01/ 

hour) working for the amount of time 

that it takes to develop a standard (one 

hour every other week for one year, 26 

hours) for 12 distinct standards. The 

$41.5 million cost estimate for software 

updates consists of $12.2 million for 

software modifications and $29.3 

million for software testing. The 

Commission quantified the cost of 


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modifying software as the annual 

compensation for one software 

developer compensated at the national 

average wage for their field ($132,930/ 

year), plus a 45% mark-up for benefits 

($59,819/year), working for the amount 

of time that it takes to develop software 

(ten months) at each of the 76 CMS 

Providers that participate in WEA. The 

Commission quantified the cost of 

testing these modifications (including 

integration testing, unit testing and 

failure testing) to require 12 software 

developers compensated at the national 

average for their field working for two 

months at each of the 76 CMS Providers 

that participate in WEA. In quantifying 

costs for software development, the 

Commission has used the same 

framework since 2016 for changes to 

software ranging from expanding WEA’s 

maximum character limit to enhanced 

geo-targeting. Because the Commission 

received no comment to the 

aforementioned costs framework that 

specifies a different analytical 

framework or dollar figure estimate, the 

Third Report and Order finds that it 

remains accurate to describe the costs 

attendant to the rules the Commission 

proposed. Because the Commission does 

not adopt all the rules the Commission 

proposed in the 2023 WEA FNPRM, the 

Commission believes the rules we 

adopted in the Third Report and Order 

will cost less than what was proposed 

in the 2023 WEA FNPRM, but do not 

quantify how much less here. 

59. The Commission determines that 

costs associated with our adopted rules 

related to WEA availability reporting to 

be relatively low for Participating CMS 

Providers that participate in WEA in 

whole or that otherwise offer WEA in 

the entirety of their geographic service 

area because such Participating CMS 

Providers have already provided the 

Commission with the geospatial data 

needed to fulfill a significant aspect of 

their reporting obligation in furtherance 

of their obligations to support the 

Commission’s Broadband Data 

Collection. The Commission agrees with 

T-Mobile that ‘‘[w]here WEA is 

available throughout a wireless 

provider’s network, the GIS files used 

for the biannual Broadband Data 

Collection should serve this purpose. If 

a wireless provider does not offer WEA 

throughout its network, it should be 

allowed to submit a different GIS 

depicting WEA coverage.’’ The 

Commission determines that in the 

Supporting Document of Study Area 

Boundary Data Reporting in Esri 

Shapefile Format, the Office of 

Information and Regulatory Affairs 

estimates that it takes an average of 26 

hours for a data scientist to modify a 

shapefile. The Commission believes 

submitting WEA availability 

information in geospatial data format 

should require no more time than 

modifying a shapefile. Therefore, the 

Commission believes 26 hours would be 

an upper bound of the time required for 

a Participating CMS Provider to report 

its WEA availability in geospatial data 

format. Given that the average wage rate 

is $55.40/hour for data scientists, with 

a 45% markup for benefits, we arrive at 

$80.33 as the hourly compensation rate 

for a data scientist. The Commission 

estimates an aggregate cost of WEA 

availability reporting to be 

approximately $$160,000 (≈ $80.33 per 

hour × 26 hours × 76 providers = 

$158,732, rounded to $160,000), which 

may be recurring on an annual basis 

since availability may change and need 

to be updated over time. Within these 

26 hours, the Commission believes that 

Participating CMS Providers will also be 

able to provide the availability 

information required by the rules 

adopted today, including lists of all the 

mobile devices the Participating CMS 

Provider offers at the point of sale, list 

of the Participating CMS Provider’s 

DBAs and subsidiaries, and any changes 

of WEA service. Many Participating 

CMS Providers already create and 

maintain this information, and 

therefore, the Commission believes that 

providing this information to the WEA 

Database would require minimal time 

burdens and would be within the cost 

estimates. 

60. No commenter objected to the 

belief that CMS Providers would not 

incur any cost to comply with our 

proposal to allow alerting authorities to 

conduct two public awareness tests per 

year. Based on the foregoing analysis, 

the Commission finds it reasonable to 

expect that these improvements will 

result in lives saved, injuries avoided, 

and a reduced need to deploy first 

responders. The Commission concludes 

that the expected public safety benefits 

exceed the costs imposed by the rules 

adopted today. 

G. Procedural Matters 

61. Regulatory Flexibility Act. The 

Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, as 

amended (RFA) requires that an agency 

prepare a regulatory flexibility analysis 

for notice and comment rulemakings, 

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 a Final Regulatory Flexibility 

Analysis (FRFA) concerning the 

potential impact of the rule and policy 

changes adopted and proposed in the 

Third Report and Order, on small 

entities. 

62. Congressional Review Act. The 

Commission has determined, and the 

Administrator of the Office of 

Information and Regulatory Affairs, 

Office of Management and Budget, 

concurs, that this rule is non-major 

under the Congressional Review Act, 5 

U.S.C. 804(2). The Commission will 

send a copy of this Third Report and 

Order to Congress and the Government 

Accountability Office pursuant 5 U.S.C. 

801(a)(1)(A). 

63. People With Disabilities. To 

request materials in accessible formats 

for people with disabilities (braille, 

large print, electronic files, audio 

format), send an email to fcc504@fcc.gov 

or call the Consumer & Governmental 

Affairs Bureau at 202–418–0530 (voice). 

64. Additional Information. For 

additional information on this 

proceeding, contact Michael Antonino, 

Cybersecurity and Communications 

Reliability Division, Public Safety and 

Homeland Security Bureau (202) 418– 

7965, or by email to Michael.Antonino@

fcc.gov. 

H. Ordering Clauses 

65. Accordingly it is ordered, 

pursuant to the authority contained in 

sections 1, 2, 4(i), 4(n), 301, 303(b), 

303(e), 303(g), 303(j), 303(r), 307, 309, 

316, 403, and 706 of the 

Communications Act of 1934, as 

amended, 47 U.S.C. 151, 152, 154(i), 

154(n), 301, 303(b), 303(e), 303(g), 

303(j), 303(r), 307, 309, 403, and 606, as 

well as by sections 602(a), (b), (c), (f), 

603, 604 and 606 of the Warning Alert 

and Response Network (WARN) Act, 47 

U.S.C. 1201(a), (b), (c), (f), 1203, 1204 

and 1206, that this Third Report and 

Order is hereby adopted. 

66. It is further ordered that Part 10 

of the Commission’s rules is amended as 

specified, and such rules will become 

effective thirty-six (36) months after 

publication of this Third Report and 

Order in the Federal Register, changes 

to 47 CFR 10.210 and 10.350, which 

may contain new or modified 

information collection requirements, 

and will not become effective until the 

completion of any review by the Office 

of Management and Budget under the 

Paperwork Reduction Act that the 

Public Safety and Homeland Security 

Bureau (PSHSB) determines is 

necessary, and changes to 47 CFR 

10.480 and 10.500(e), which are the 

subject of a further Bureau-level 

rulemaking, and will not become 

effective until thirty (30) months after 

the Bureau publishes a subsequent 

Order in the Federal Register. PSHSB 


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will publish a notice in the Federal 

Register announcing the relevant 

effective date for each of these sections. 

67. It is further ordered that the Office 

of the Managing Director, Performance & 

Program Management, shall send a copy 

of this Third Report and Order in a 

report to be sent to Congress and the 

Government Accountability Office 

pursuant to the Congressional Review 

Act, 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A). 

Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis 

68. As required by the Regulatory 

Flexibility Act of 1980, as amended 

(RFA), an Initial Regulatory Flexibility 

Analysis (IRFA) was incorporated into 

the FNPRM released in June 2023 in this 

proceeding. The Commission sought 

written public comment on the 

proposals in the NPRM, including 

comment on the IRFA. Comments filed 

addressing the IRFA are discussed 

below. This present Final Regulatory 

Flexibility Analysis (FRFA) conforms to 

the RFA. 

A. Need for, and Objectives of, the Final 

Rules 

69. In this proceeding, the 

Commission adopts rules to enhance the 

utility of the Wireless Emergency Alert 

(WEA) system by making it more 

accessible and enabling WEAs to 

provide more personalized alerts. 

Specifically, the Commission requires 

Participating Commercial Mobile 

Service Providers (Participating CMS 

Providers) to enable alerting authorities 

to display translated Alert Message 

content via the use of emergency alert 

message templates. In addition, these 

efforts to make WEA messages more 

accessibility extend to the deaf and hard 

of hearing community pursuant to the 

requirement that Participating CMS 

Providers’ WEA-capable mobile devices 

support templates in American Sign 

Language (ASL). The Commission 

concludes that enabling the display of 

translated Alert Message content via the 

use of emergency alert message 

templates will allow alert originators to 

inform those communities that 

primarily speak a language other than 

English or Spanish of emergencies and 

save more lives. The Commission also 

adopts rules to require Participating 

CMS Providers’ WEA-capable mobile 

devices to support the presentation of 

WEA messages that link the recipient to 

a native mapping application. This 

requirement will allow alert originators 

to personalize alerts, spurring people to 

take protective action more quickly and 

to understand whether an alert applies 

to their them. Further, to allow alerting 

authorities to understand WEA’s 

reliability, speed, and accuracy and to 

promote the use of WEA as a tool for 

raising public awareness about 

emergencies likely to occur, the 

Commission requires Participating CMS 

Providers to support up to two end-toend WEA tests, per county or county 

equivalent, per year, that consumers 

receive by default, subject to the 

conditions described in the Third 

Report and Order. The adoption of this 

rule promotes compliance and presents 

a minimal burden for Participating CMS 

Providers. Finally, the Commission 

adopts rules to require Participating 

CMS Providers to submit certain 

information in the WEA Database. 

Requiring the disclosure of data 

outlined in the Third Report and Order 

will allow alert originators and 

consumers more insight into WEA’s 

availability and enable a transparent 

understanding of WEA. 

70. In light of the significant public 

safety benefits, which include the 

capacity to save lives, mitigate and 

prevent injuries, the Commission 

believes that the actions taken in the 

Third Report and Order further the 

public interest. 

B. Summary of Significant Issues Raised 

by Public Comments in Response to the 

IRFA 

71. Three commenters specifically 

addressed the proposed rules and 

policies presented in the IRFA. The 

Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) 

argued that flexibility of implementing 

the proposed rules would promote 

participation in WEA by smaller and 

regional carriers because the supply 

chain and level of support for handsets 

for smaller and regional carriers 

generally lags behind nationwide 

carriers. Further, CCA stated the 

additional requirements would 

disproportionately burden smaller and 

regional carriers that operate with small 

teams and limited resources. CCA 

suggested increased time for compliance 

for non-nationwide carriers. 

72. Southern Communications 

Services, Inc. d/b/a Southern Linc 

(Southern Linc) raised concerns similar 

to those raised by CCA, namely, that the 

Commission should account for the 

disproportionate impact that the 

proposed requirements in the 2023 WEA 

FNPRM would have on smaller and 

regional carriers and the Commission 

should provide small and medium-sized 

mobile service providers additional time 

to comply. 

73. CTIA—The Wireless Association 

(CTIA) argued that to the extent the 

proposals made in the 2023 WEA 

FNPRM would require a complete 

overhaul of the WEA System, that such 

changes to the WEA system also may 

disproportionately impact regional and 

smaller, rural carriers, who often rely on 

third-party vendors to implement WEA 

functions and may not be able to bear 

the additional technical and financial 

burdens, rendering their ongoing 

voluntary participation in WEA 

infeasible. 

74. The Commission considered the 

potential impact of the rules proposed 

in the IRFA on small entities and we 

concluded that these mandates provide 

Participating CMS Providers with a 

sufficient measure of flexibility to 

account for any technical and/or costrelated concerns. The Commission has 

determined that implementing these 

improvements to WEA are technically 

feasible for small entities and other 

Participating CMS Providers and the 

cost of implementation is reasonable. To 

help facilitate compliance with the 

requirements in the Third Report and 

Order, the Commission adopted a 

compliance timeframe that is longer 

than the timeframe necessary to 

complete the requirements based on the 

record. The 30-month timeframe allows 

12 months for the appropriate industry 

bodies to finalize and publish relevant 

standards, 12 months for Participating 

CMS Providers and device 

manufacturers to develop and integrate 

software upgrades consistent with those 

standards, and an additional 6 months 

to deploy this technology in WEAcapable-mobile devices. The 

Commission believes that the public 

interest benefits of expanding the reach 

and accessibility of WEA significantly 

outweigh the costs that small and other 

providers will incur to implement the 

requirements adopted in the Third 

Report and Order. 

C. Response to Comments by Chief 

Counsel for Advocacy of the Small 

Business Administration 

75. The Chief Counsel did not file any 

comments in response to the proposed 

rules in this proceeding. 

D. Description and Estimate of the 

Number of Small Entities to Which the 

Rules Will Apply 

76. The RFA directs agencies to 

provide a description of and, where 

feasible, an estimate of the number of 

small entities that may be affected by 

the rules adopted herein. The RFA 

generally defines the term ‘‘small 

entity’’ as having the same meaning as 

the terms ‘‘small business,’’ ‘‘small 

organization,’’ and ‘‘small governmental 

jurisdiction.’’ In addition, the term 

‘‘small business’’ has the same meaning 

as the term ‘‘small business concern’’ 

under the Small Business Act.’’ A 

‘‘small business concern’’ is one which: 


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(1) is independently owned and 

operated; (2) is not dominant in its field 

of operation; and (3) satisfies any 

additional criteria established by the 

SBA. The types of entities that will be 

affected include Wireless 

Communications Services, Radio and 

Television Broadcasting and Wireless 

Communications Equipment 

Manufacturing, Software Publishers, 

Noncommercial Educational (NCE) and 

Public Broadcast Stations, Cable and 

Other Subscription Programming, All 

Other Telecommunications providers 

(primarily engaged in providing 

specialized telecommunications 

services, such as satellite tracking, 

communications telemetry, and radar 

station operation). 

E. Description of Projected Reporting, 

Recordkeeping, and Other Compliance 

Requirements for Small Entities 

77. The Third Report and Order will 

adopt new or additional reporting, 

recordkeeping and/or other compliance 

obligations on small entities to report 

information about WEA availability in 

the WEA Database. Specifically, the 

rules require all CMS Providers to: (1) 

refresh their WEA election of whether to 

participate in WEA ‘‘in whole’’ or ‘‘in 

part’’ or not to participate in a 

Commission-hosted, publicly available 

WEA Database; (2) disclose the entities 

on behalf of which it files its election, 

irrespective of whether it elects to 

participate in WEA, including names of 

subsidiary companies and the ‘‘doing 

business as’’ names under which a CMS 

Provider offer wireless service; (3) 

disclose the geographic areas in which 

they offer WEA; (4) submit to the WEA 

Database a list of all the mobile devices 

they offer at the point of sale; and (5) 

use the WEA Database as a means of 

providing notice of withdrawing their 

election to Participating in WEA. 

78. The Commission determined that 

costs associated with the adopted rules 

related to WEA availability reporting to 

be minimal for small entities that 

participate in WEA in whole or that 

otherwise offer WEA in the entirety of 

their geographic service area because 

such small entities may have already 

provided the Commission with the 

geospatial data needed to fulfill a 

significant aspect of their reporting 

obligation in furtherance of their 

obligations to support the Commission’s 

Broadband Data Collection. Where WEA 

is available throughout a wireless 

provider’s network, the GIS files used 

for the biannual Broadband Data 

Collection should serve this purpose. If 

a wireless provider does not offer WEA 

throughout its network, it should be 

allowed to submit a different GIS 

depicting WEA coverage. The 

Commission determined that in the 

Supporting Document of Study Area 

Boundary Data Reporting in Esri 

Shapefile Format, the Office of 

Information and Regulatory Affairs 

estimates that it takes an average of 26 

hours for a data scientist to modify a 

shapefile. The Commission believes 

submitting WEA availability 

information in geospatial data format 

should require no more time than 

modifying a shapefile. Therefore, the 

Commission believes 26 hours would be 

an upper bound of the time required for 

a Participating CMS Provider to report 

its WEA availability in geospatial data 

format. 

79. The Commission reasons that no 

additional, ongoing or annualized 

burdens will result from this reporting 

obligation for small entities and other 

Participating CMS Providers because the 

requirement that we adopt today does 

not change the approach that 

Participating CMS Providers must take 

to updating their elections once this 

one-time renewed election is completed. 

For example, the rules adopted in the 

Third Report and Order do not impose 

annual certification of a CMS Provider’s 

participation in WEA, but rather require 

reporting in the WEA Database only in 

event of a change of a CMS Provider’s 

participation in WEA. The Commission 

is not currently in a position to 

determine whether the rules adopted in 

the Third Report and Order will require 

small entities to hire attorneys, 

engineers, consultants, or other 

professionals to comply. 

F. Steps Taken To Minimize Significant 

Economic Impact on Small Entities, and 

Significant Alternatives Considered 

80. The Commission continues to 

adopt measures to improve WEA and 

continues to meet its obligation to 

develop the nation’s emergency 

preparedness and response 

infrastructure by making WEA more 

accessible by adding multilingual 

(including ASL) functionality, 

integrating location-aware maps, 

enabling Performance and Public 

Awareness tests, and establishing a 

WEA Database for Participating CMS 

Providers to report information about 

WEA availability. While doing so, the 

Commission is mindful that small 

entities may incur costs; the 

Commission weighed these costs against 

the public interest benefits of the new 

obligations and determined the benefits 

outweigh the costs. The specific steps 

the Commission has taken to minimize 

costs and reduce the economic impact 

for small entities and alternatives 

considered are discussed below. 

81. In adopting the rule to enable 

alerting authorities to display translated 

Alert Message content via the use of 

emergency alert message templates, the 

Commission found the record 

demonstrates that machine translation is 

not yet ripe for use today in WEA. The 

use of alert message templates should 

minimize the impact of the adopted 

requirements for small entities because 

it will limit developing software and 

standards to enable machine 

translations. Because the alert message 

templates will be produced by the 

Public Safety and Homeland Security 

Bureau after taking into account public 

feedback, small entities will not need to 

expend resources to translate emergency 

messages and develop template alert 

messages. 

82. In response to concerns about our 

proposed compliance timeframe, the 

Third Report and Order provided 

additional time. The Commission 

believes the additional time will help 

minimize the burden on small entities. 

Additionally, the rules adopted in the 

Third Report and Order are 

technologically neutral to provide small 

entities the flexibility to comply with 

our rules using technologies offered by 

a variety of vendors. 

G. Report to Congress 

83. The Commission will send a copy 

of the Third Report and Order, 

including this FRFA, in a report to be 

sent to Congress pursuant to the 

Congressional Review Act. In addition, 

the Commission will send a copy of the 

Third Report and Order, including this 

FRFA, to the Chief Counsel for 

Advocacy of the SBA. A copy of the 

Third Report and Order and FRFA (or 

summaries thereof) will also be 

published in the Federal Register. 

List of Subjects in 47 CFR Part 10 

Communications common carriers, 

Radio. 

Federal Communications Commission. 

Marlene Dortch, 

Secretary. 

Final Rules 

For the reasons discussed in the 

preamble, the Federal Communications 

Commission amends 47 CFR part 10 as 

follows: 

PART 10—WIRELESS EMERGENCY 

ALERTS 

■ 1. Effective December 15, 2026, the 

authority citation for part 10 is revised 

to read as follows: 

Authority: 47 U.S.C. 151, 152, 154(i), 

154(n), 201, 301, 303(b), 303(e), 303(g), 


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303(j), 303(r), 307, 309, 316, 403, 544(g), 606, 

1201, 1202, 1203, 1204, and 1206. 

■ 2. Delayed indefinitely, amend 

§ 10.210 by revising paragraph (a) 

introductory text, redesignating 

paragraph (b) as paragraph (d), adding 

new paragraph (b), revising paragraph 

(c), and revising the newly redesignated 

paragraph (d). 

The revisions and addition read as 

follows: 

§ 10.210 WEA participation election 

procedures. 

(a) A CMS provider that elects to 

transmit WEA Alert Messages must elect 

to participate in part or in whole, as 

defined by § 10.10(l) and (m), and shall 

electronically file in the Commission’s 

WEA Database attesting that the 

Provider: 

* * * * * 

(b) A CMS Provider that elects to 

participate in WEA must disclose the 

following information in their election 

filed in the Commission’s WEA 

Database: 

(1) The entities on behalf of which the 

Participating CMS Provider files its 

election, including the subsidiary 

companies (whether those subsidiaries 

are wholly owned or operated CMS 

Providers, Mobile Virtual Network 

Operators, or wireless resellers) on 

behalf of which their election is filed 

and the ‘‘doing business as’’ names 

under which a Participating CMS 

Provider offers WEA; 

(2) The geographic area in which the 

Participating CMS Provider agrees to 

offer WEA alerts, either as: 

(i) An attestation that they offer WEA 

in the entirety of their voice coverage 

area as reported to the Commission in 

the Broadband Data Collection or any 

successors; or 

(ii) Geospatial data submitted to the 

Commission through the WEA Database. 

(3) The extent to which all mobile 

devices that the Participating CMS 

Provider offers at the point of sale are 

WEA-capable, as demonstrated by the 

following: 

(i) The mobile devices, as defined in 

§ 10.10(j), that the Participating CMS 

Provider offers at their point of sale; and 

(ii) The WEA-capable mobile devices, 

as defined in § 10.10(k), that the 

Participating CMS Provider offers at 

their point of sale. 

(c) If the terms of a CMS Provider’s 

WEA participation change in any 

manner described by paragraph (b) of 

this section, it must update the 

information promptly such that the 

information in the WEA Database 

accurately reflects the terms of their 

WEA participation. Updates (if any) for 

the period from August 16 through 

February 15 must be filed by the 

following March 1, and updates for the 

period from February 16 through August 

15 must be filed by the following 

September 1 of each year. 

(d) A CMS Provider that elects not to 

transmit WEA Alert Messages shall file 

electronically in the Commission’s WEA 

Database attesting to that fact. Their 

filing shall include any subsidiary 

companies on behalf of which the 

election is filed and the CMS Provider’s 

‘‘doing business as’’ names, if 

applicable. 

■ 3. Delayed indefinitely, amend 

§ 10.350 by adding paragraph (d) to read 

as follows: 

§ 10.350 WEA testing and proficiency 

training requirements. 

* * * * * 

(d) Performance and Public 

Awareness Tests. Participating CMS 

Providers may participate in no more 

than two (2) WEA tests per county (or 

county equivalent), per calendar year 

that the public receives by default, 

provided that the entity conducting the 

test: 

(1) Conducts outreach and notifies the 

public before the test that live event 

codes will be used, but that no 

emergency is, in fact, occurring; 

(2) To the extent technically feasible, 

states in the test message that the event 

is only a test; 

(3) Coordinates the test among 

Participating CMS Providers and with 

State and local emergency authorities, 

the relevant SECC (or SECCs, if the test 

could affect multiple States), and first 

responder organizations, such as PSAPs, 

police, and fire agencies); and 

(4) Provides in widely accessible 

formats the notification to the public 

required by this paragraph that the test 

is only a test and is not a warning about 

an actual emergency. 

■ 4. Delayed indefinitely, revise 

§ 10.480 to read as follows: 

§ 10.480 Language support. 

(a) Participating CMS Providers are 

required to transmit WEA Alert 

Messages that are issued in the Spanish 

language or that contain Spanishlanguage characters. 

(b) Participating CMS Providers are 

required to support the display of a prescripted alert pre-installed and stored in 

the mobile device that corresponds to 

the default language of the mobile 

device. 

■ 5. Effective December 15, 2026, 

amend § 10.500 by adding paragraph (i) 

to read as follows: 

§ 10.500 General requirements. 

* * * * * 

(i) For Alert Messages with a target 

area specified by a circle or polygon, 

when a device has location services 

enabled and has granted location 

permissions to its native mapping 

application, Participating CMS 

Providers must support the presentation 

of a map along with an emergency alert 

message that includes at least 

(1) The shape of the target area, 

(2) The user’s location relative to the 

target area, and 

(3) A geographical representation of a 

target area in which both the targeted 

area and user are located. 

■ 6. Delayed indefinitely, further amend 

§ 10.500 by revising paragraph (e) to 

read as follows: 

§ 10.500 General requirements. 

* * * * * 

(e) Extraction of alert content in 

English and the subscriber-specified 

default language, if applicable. 

(1) Storing pre-scripted alerts in 

English, Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, 

Vietnamese, Arabic, French, Korean, 

Russian, Haitian Creole, German, Hindi, 

Portuguese, and Italian. 

(2) Allowing the subscriber to choose 

to receive pre-scripted Alert Messages in 

American Sign Language (ASL) instead 

of or in addition to their mobile device’s 

subscriber-specified default language 

setting. 

* * * * * 

[FR Doc. 2023–27236 Filed 12–14–23; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6712–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration 

50 CFR Part 648 

[Docket No. 221223–0282; RTID 0648– 

XD584] 

Fisheries of the Northeastern United 

States; Summer Flounder Fishery; 

Quota Transfer From NC to VA 

AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries 

Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 

Commerce. 

ACTION: Notification of quota transfer. 

SUMMARY: NMFS announces that the 

State of North Carolina is transferring a 

portion of its 2023 commercial summer 

flounder quota to the Commonwealth of 

Virginia. This adjustment to the 2023 

fishing year quota is necessary to 

comply with the Summer Flounder, 

Scup, and Black Sea Bass Fishery 

Management Plan quota transfer 


ddrumheller on DSK120RN23PROD with RULES1