TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Amber Alerts

Re: Amber Alerts

Neal McLain (nmclain@annsgarden.com)
Thu, 13 Apr 2006 23:00:54 -0400

Wesrock@aol.com wrote:

> Cox serves both the Tulsa and Oklahoma City metropolitan areas.
> They are dumping the smaller places on other carriers.

> But what role does Cox have in putting out the word? On the
> Oklahoma City area they have one channel of their own (for which
> they provide the programming, which may or may not be locally
> originated) but this would be good only for reaching the people
> watching that channel, usually a pretty small audience.

Cable TV systems are required by FCC to monitor the local primary EAS
station and to relay certain EAS alerts to all subscribers whose TV
sets are turned on. Depending on the size (total subscribership) of
the system, the type of converters used, and the nature of the
emergency, the alert may take the form of:

- A video crawl on all channels.
- Forced retuning of all converters to a "details" channel.
- Audio override on all channels.
- Some combination of above.

A flow chart illustrating this is posted at http://tinyurl.com/nrfwr
on page 14.

Neal McLain

Post Followup Article Use your browser's quoting feature to quote article into reply
Go to Next message: Herb Stein: "Re: MySpace Hires Child Safety Expert From Microsoft"
Go to Previous message: Paul Robinson: "Re: Competitive DSL (Correct"
TELECOM Digest: Home Page