Communications Technology Group

Status Report to the Commercial Mobile Service Alert Advisory Committee

May 16, 2007Brian K. Daly, CTG Leader

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CTG Mission The primary mission of the Communications Technology Group

(CTG) is to develop and submit recommendations for relevant technical standards for devices and equipment and technologies used by electing commercial mobile service (CMS) providers to transmit emergency alerts to subscribers (see WARN Act §603(c)(3)). Furthermore, per WARN Act §603(c)(6), the CTG will develop recommendations for a process under which CMS providers can elect to transmit emergency alerts if: A) not all of the devices or equipment used by such provider are

capable of receiving such alerts or; B) the provider cannot offer such alerts throughout the entirety of its

service area. Furthermore, the CTG will support development of technical

standards for priority transmission of alerts by electing CMS providers to subscribers (WARN Act 603(c)(2)).

Finally, the CTG will support the development of recommendations for the technical capability to transmit emergency alerts by electing CMS providers to subscribers in languages in addition to English, to the extent feasible and practicable. See WARN Act §603(c)(4)).

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Status - CTG Issues to Address Recommendations for technologies and methods permitting the

efficient transmission of messages to potentially the entire subscriber base of an operator – First reported in March: The CTG is defining Service Profiles which prescribe the underlying

delivery attributes Goal is to define service profiles and not specific delivery technologies If an Operator elects to transmit alerts they should have the option to use

any available technology that supports a given profile Permit the distribution of alerts with the appropriate priorities as

indicated by the AIG. Messages will be delivered in the order received; prioritization and

sequencing to be performed at the Interface or Gateway Recommendations on methods permitting the targeting of alerts to

specific geographic regions or locales, thereby enabling use of this important emergency service by other alerting authorities, including state and local governments. CTG has developed working assumptions on geo-targeting to be

presented in this briefing

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Status - CTG Issues to Address Recommendations on handset and device

technologies appropriate for alerting services – First reported in March. CTG Device Ad Hoc is addressing key issues

surrounding the handset and device technologies The needs of non-English subscribers as well

as people with special needs, including people with disabilities and the elderly. CTG is addressing issues surrounding the support

of multi-languages; further details provided in this briefing

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Status - CTG Issues to Address To ensure that this critical emergency service continues to

evolve with technology supporting it, the CTG should also consider recommendations permitting the incorporation of planned service improvements, such as expected multimedia and broadband services, into their CMS alerting capability – First reported in March. CTG is in the process of defining service profiles for audio,

video, and multimedia for broadband multimedia networks of the future

The CTG will develop recommendations to facilitate eventual alignment of the Advisory Committee’s recommendations with relevant standards organizations focused on the development of mobile communication standards to support its continued evolution and adaptation. Standards recommendations will be provided after all

technology recommendations are known

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CTG Status Monthly multi-day face-to-face meetings with interim

conference calls Since last report, held 2 face-to-face meetings

and 3 conference calls First draft of CTG Requirements & Architecture

document has been developed by the CTG for internal review

Coordinating with the other working groups Liaisons being sent to other working groups

On track for making recommendations to the Project Management Group per the project schedule and assignment of responsibilities

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CTG Statistics (Totals)

As of March 12th Current

Number of Assigned Doc Numbers

109 145

Number of Docs with Revisions

158 236

Number of Liaison Docs

8 23

Number of Action Items

10 20

Number of Face-to-Face Meetings & Days

2 meetings over 4 days

4 meetings over 9 days

Number of Conference Calls of CTG & Ad-Hocs

15 18

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CTG Participants Substantial work effort with over 30 CMSAAC delegates

and subject matter experts: Cingular (Leader) Sprint-Nextel (Deputy Leader) Alltel American Association of Paging Carriers Rural Cellular Association T-Mobile Verizon Ericsson Motorola Nokia Nortel Qualcomm

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Project Timelines & Milestones Next 3 months

Complete service profile definitions

Address special needs requirements

Address battery life issues Define recommendations for

handset and device technologies Complete gateway to wireless

interface definition Finalize use cases Address UNG comments to

handset and device technologies Address OAM&P

recommendations Evaluate security requirements Define technology evolution path

to multimedia and broadband Address alignment with standards

August All technical issues resolved Final delivery of CTG requirements

to the PMG September

Address final comments from all working groups

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Service Profiles The CTG is continuing the process of defining

service profiles Service Profiles define the underlying delivery

attributes Include text, audio, video, and multimedia

Text is underlying “common denominator” service profile

Defined Audio service profile and underlying working assumptions for future multimedia broadcast technologies Work on video & multimedia service profiles in progress

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Draft Conclusions for Audio, Video & Multimedia

The CMAS service profiles for text, audio, video, and multimedia messages are for the transmission of text data, audio files, video files, and multimedia files and not for the presentation of real-time content

Sending audio files (e.g. wav files) via cell broadcast is not efficient, practical, or feasible.

In the future, more advanced multimedia broadcast technologies for mobile devices may provide the capabilities to support audio based alerts

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Draft Conclusions for Audio, Video & Multimedia

Alignment is necessary between alert origination capabilities and CMAS capabilities: CMAS is not capable of providing the

real-time audio broadcast of a Presidential alert

Presidential alerts could be delivered over CMAS using text-based messaging.

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Draft Conclusions for Audio, Video & Multimedia The Alerting Gateway is responsible for collecting and

assembling all text, audio, video, and multimedia components of the CMAS messages to be given to the wireless operators for transmission If the CAP includes a Resource Element that includes an URI, it

is not expected that the wireless service provider will be required to retrieve the file specified by the URI The Alerting Gateway will retrieve the associated file during the

collection and assembly process for the CMAS alert message and deliver it to the wireless service provider

Any audio, video, and multimedia files collected for the CMAS alert messages must be provided to the wireless service provider in a standard set of formats which are to be jointly defined by the CTG and AGG

Transcoding and transmission of audio, video, or multimedia files into the formats supported by the mobile devices is the responsibility of the Wireless Service Provider Gateway and/or the Wireless Service Provider Infrastructure

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Battery Life Concerns

Mobile device & battery technology has progressed to provide significant standby and talk times for mobile devices

Subscribers expectations are set Technologies which provide broadcast

capability may have an impact on these expectations

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Battery Life Concerns ETSI TR 102 444 V1.1.1 (2006-02), Analysis of the

Short Message Service (SMS) and Cell Broadcast Service (CBS) for Emergency Messaging applications “A MS (i.e., handset) normally has to be specifically enabled

by the subscriber to receive CBS messages. Once enabled, mobile manufacturer's report a considerable drain on battery life, although there are techniques in the specifications (DRX) to reduce this problem. Concerns have been raised by mobile manufacturers on the effectiveness of DRX, as any enabling of CBS, with or without DRX can reduce the "talk time" of their products, which is a key marketing differentiator. For this reason, MS's (i.e. handsets) are normally shipped with the Cell Broadcast feature switched off.”

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Battery Life Concerns June 3rd 2004 the following statement

from the GSM Association (GSMA) to 3GPP T2 working group on mobile devices “…..When cell broadcast monitoring of a channel

is enabled, there is significant battery drain on the terminal device, as it continually monitors for incoming CB pages on that channel. For some handsets this can reduce the standby time by up to 50%. (This is especially inefficient if the page data on the channel never changes or is seldom changed) …..”

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Battery Life Concerns In addition, CMAS parameters impact

battery life Number of languages (open issue to be

addressed) Number of unique messages Number of retransmissions Duration of Audio Alert Tone and/or

Vibration on mobile device Additional handset and system

capabilities to support CMA

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CTG Steps to Address Battery Life Concerns Review the existing studies and determine

if they are still valid and applicable to CMAS Also identify if any similar studies are available

for CDMA and paging technologies Evaluate battery life impact of user needs

requirements E.g. battery life impacts to flashing and/or

vibrating the devices every few minutes when an alert is received

Understand the estimated frequency of CMAS alerts and how this impacts battery life

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Steps to Address Battery Life Concerns (continued) CTG-member mobile device manufacturers and

wireless operators asked to provide an analysis of the impacts of CMAS to mobile device battery life and identify any mechanisms to minimize impact to battery life (e.g., DRX in GSM)

Investigate impacts to mobile device battery life from any trials or deployments of the technology, either commercially or for an alerting service

Investigate using the Idaho National Lab Wireless Testbed to evaluate the battery life issue under various alerting scenarios

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Geo-targeting Draft Conclusions

The minimum precision for geo-targeted geography for CMA will be the county A Service Provider may elect to target smaller areas if they chose and the

technology supports it, but it will not be required

The Service Provider is not required to dynamically match alert geography to RF coverage areas

A Service Provider shall not be required to divulge cell site information, coverage information, or any RF properties of their respective networks The Service Provider shall be the sole agent responsible for determining

which network facilities, elements, or locations are involved in transmitting a CMA to a mobile device

A Service Provider could use either (or both) the latitude/longitude coordinates (e.g. circle or polygon) or the FIPS Codes or equivalent over reference point “C” Expectation is both will be provided

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Draft Conclusions for Alerting Alert Type

Audio Single Unique Audio Tone defined for all CMA message types Limited by audio safety limits

Vibration Motor Suggested – Single Unique Vibration cadence for all CMA

message types for devices that can support vibration cadences Not all handsets support vibration patterns

Force of vibration limited by hardware (including size) Incoming CMA will not Override Personal Audio/Vibration

Settings on the Mobile Device CMA will follow the profile settings

E.g. if user sets mobile device in Vibrate or Silent mode, the Unique CMA Audio Tone will not override that setting

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Language Support CTG is evaluating feasibility and practicality of

supporting languages in addition to English Fundamental technical problems to reliably implement

languages in addition to English Alert source must provide CMA message in language(s)

other than English if CMA recommendation is to support multi-languages Service providers will not be responsible for language

translations Additional languages increases the cost and complexity

in the handset and in the network Mobile Device may have character set limitations Additional Character sets limit the amount of data that

can be transmitted For example, some character sets take 2 Bytes per character

versus 1 Byte per character 70 characters is now 35 characters

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Language Support (continued) Fundamental question: How many

languages other than English are feasible and practical for CMA? On a National basis, only Spanish

exceeds 1% of households* On a local basis, there are potentially

more than 37 languages that exceed 1% of households* Would required >16 different character sets

to be supported in the mobile device

* Per 2000 U.S. Census data

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Language Support (continued)

Radio Resource Limitations Text service profile is limited to

approximately 70 characters Each alert may be retransmitted

Reducing the number of Alerts supported

Multiple Alerts Types may occur simultaneously Reducing the number of Alerts

supported Each added language will

proportionally decrease the number of Alerts supported

English

English

2nd Language

Fixed Number of Alerts

Supported

English 2nd Language3rd Language4th Language

CTG Is Evaluating Support for Spanish as a 2nd Language for CMA

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Summary Several key issues are being

addressed, including Battery Life Multi-language

CTG is working well with other CMSAAC working groups

CTG is on track for providing recommendations to the PMG by August, 2007