[sbe-eas] FCC report on 2021 national wireless emergency alert test

[Sean Donelan]

The FCC published "Report: August 11, 2021 Nationwide WEA Test" today.

Overall, a well-written report. It looks like the FCC hired someone with 
research and statistics experience. They did some data massaging. Unlike 
past reports, they documented their data analysis. The report only 
analyzes the Wireless Emergency Alert portion of the test.  Nothing about 
EAS.

National test results: 89.8% respondants received, 10.2% not received

Most metrics show no difference between categories (provide, location, 
network, etc).

There were differences with older 3G cell phones, and a software problem 
with AT&T resulting in duplicate alerts.

The next steps were mostly reasonable, although they missed an obvious 
data source, Apple iOS and Alphabet Android diagnostic logs collected by 
the mobile handsets. And I don't agree fully with their analysis of the 
duplicate alert message problem, which has existed for 10 years, since the 
beginning of WEA. Although duplicate alerts have diminished over the 
years.


https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/10104235237454/DOC-378907A1.pdf