[sbe-eas] National Periodic Test (NPT) for October 4 (backup October 11)

[Sean Donelan]

On Fri, 4 Aug 2023, Dave Turnmire wrote:
> Someone refresh my memory as to how this is handled for the WEA part.  
> Does WEA support "NPT"?  Will the phone treat this as a "test" subject 
> to the opt-in requirement?  Or will most of the public receive this?  
> And will it trigger the WEA attention tone?

WEA uses five classes: National Alert, Imminent Threat Alert, Child 
Abduction Emergency/AMBER Alert, Public Safety Message and State/Local 
Test.

According to the FCC notice:

"This will be the third end-to-end nationwide test of WEA, and will be 
delivered using the National Alert class of Alert Message. As proposed by 
FEMA, the test would originate at 2:18 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on 
Wednesday, October 4, 2023, with a back-up date of Wednesday, October 11, 
2023 at the same time, and would involve sending a WEA message to mobile 
devices throughout the entire United States and United States territories.

The WEA test would be conducted in coordination with a nationwide test of 
the Emergency Alert System (EAS) that would follow two minutes after the 
WEA test."

2:18 p.m. ET - WEA (about 1 minute for processing means ~2:19:00)
2:20 p.m. ET - EAS (about 30 seconds for daisy-chain means ~2:20:30)

The National Alert class in WEA overrides muting, and triggers both 
alert tone and vibration signal on mobile devices.  Flip-phones and older 
smart phones get 90 characters.  New smart phones get 360 characters.


Although FEMA and FCC say mobile phones will receive the alert once, the 
international standard WEA is based on, mobile devices with a secondary 
language will receive BOTH the primary language and secondary language 
alerts.

Phones with English as a primary language will receive the primay alert 
(ENGLISH) once.

Phones with a Spanish language will receive the alert in BOTH the primary 
alert (ENGLISH) and selected secondary language (SPANISH).

Phones with other languages selected will receive only the primary alert 
(ENGLISH).


In other words, ALL mobile devices get the PRIMARY alert.

Mobile devices with a secondary language selected get the PRIMARY alert 
plus also get a SECONDARY alert, if it matches the secondary language.