The FCC today announced a 9-month extension to the deadline for broadcasters and cable operators to have equipment installed to receive Emergency Alert System (EAS) Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) alerts. The previous deadline of September 30, 2011 has now been extended to June 30, 2012.

The extension was published in an FCC EAS Fourth Report and Order, which further stated:

“This Fourth Report and Order is one of two orders in which we will take additional steps to integrate the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) into our Part 11 rules governing the Emergency Alert System (EAS). In this Order, we amend section 11.56 of the Commission’s EAS rules to require EAS Participants to be able to receive CAP-formatted EAS alerts as required by Part 11 no later than June 30, 2012. We anticipate that we will adopt the CAP-based revisions to our Part 11 EAS rules in a subsequent order stemming from our Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (hereinafter “Third FNPRM”) in this docket sufficiently in advance of June 30, 2012, to allow EAS Participants ample time to comply with the new Part 11 rules. In this subsequent order, we will also address the many remaining non-CAP related issues raised in our Third FNPRM.”

In addition to extending the CAP deadline to June 30, 2012, it states:

“In the Third FNPRM, the Commission noted that some equipment vendors may be marketing equipment – intermediary devices – that connects in some fashion with previously certified EAS equipment to allow that equipment to receive CAP-formatted alerts in the legacy EAS format. The Commission sought comment on a number of issues regarding these devices, including whether they must be certified under current EAS rules and whether they satisfy the Commission’s 2007 CAP-related requirements. Although we intend to address these issues in our subsequent order, we note that, based on the record, it appears that some EAS Participants may have purchased such equipment. We remind EAS Participants that equipment that meets the definition of an encoder or a decoder under our rules must be certified under Section 11.34 of the Commission’s current rules. In addition, equipment used to receive CAP-formatted EAS alerts must, at a minimum, comply with the CAP requirements the Commission adopted in the Second Report and Order. While we do not decide today whether intermediary devices comply with these requirements, it is unclear whether any equipment that does not meet these current baseline requirements will be able to satisfy any CAP-related rules we may adopt in the future. Consequently, we urge EAS Participants that have purchased or are considering purchase of any type of EAS equipment to verify with manufacturers and/or vendors that the equipment complies with current FCC rules.”

Link to 4th R&O: http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db0916/FCC-11-136A1.pdf