Washington - Sep 16, 2011 - The Federal Communications Commission has extended the deadline for broadcast stations to have their Emergency Alert System equipment be CAP compliant to June 30, 2012. The previous deadline was Sept. 30, 2011.

The FCC said, "In this Fourth Report and Order, we have revised the rules to extend the date by which EAS participants must be able to receive CAP-formatted EAS alert to June 30, 2012."

The FCC explained that more time is needed to revise Part 11 of the FCC Rules so that it cannot impose a deadline by which EAS participants must receive CAP-formatted alerts.

The report and order also discusses the CAP converters under development. "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."

Read the FCC EAS Fourth Report and Order.