ATSC Eyes Mobile EAS Standard

The Advanced Television Systems Committee has begun to standardize a mobile emergency alert system (M-EAS) as an addition to the ATSC A/153 Mobile Digital TV standard. The M-EAS enhancements to the A/153 standard are intended to provide capabilities for delivering multimedia alerts (utilizing video, audio, text, and graphics) to mobile DTV-equipped cellphones, tablets, laptops, netbooks and in-car navigation systems. M-EAS requires no additional spectrum and is an additional use of existing TV transmitters and towers.The development of an ATSC standard for Mobile Emergency Alerts has been assigned to the organization's TG1/S4 Specialist Group on Mobile Digital TV. Work is underway to consider backward-compatible changes to the A/153 Mobile DTV standard to accommodate the new M-EAS capabilities.