[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 89 (Monday, May 10, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Page 25842]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-10923]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Telecommunications and Information Administration

[Docket No. 100504211-0211-01]


Notice of a Grant With the Public Broadcasting Service

AGENCY: National Telecommunications and Information Administration, 
U.S. Department of Commerce.

ACTION: Notice of a grant to the Public Broadcasting Service.

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SUMMARY: The National Telecommunications and Information Administration 
(NTIA) announces its intent to award a grant to the Public Broadcasting 
Service (PBS), a private, nonprofit corporation whose members are 
America's public television stations. The PBS mission is to acquire and 
distribute quality children's, cultural, educational, history, nature, 
news, public affairs and science television programming and related 
services to 356 noncommercial stations serving all 50 states and the 
U.S. territories through a satellite interconnection system. This grant 
will support development of the Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS), 
a national system to distribute emergency alert messages to the 
American public via commercial mobile service (CMS) devices (e.g., 
cellular telephones).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: William Cooperman, Director, Public 
Broadcasting Division, telephone: (202) 482-5802; Fax: (202) 482-2156; 
e-mail: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
    Statutory Authority: Section 3010 of the Deficit Reduction Act of 
2005, Public Law 109-171, 120 Stat. 4, 26-27 (Feb. 8, 2006) 
(establishing the National Alert and Tsunami Warning Program); Section 
606 of the SAFE Port Act, Public Law 109-347, 120 Stat. 1884, 1941 
(Oct. 13, 2006) (directing NTIA to compensate public television station 
licensees or permittees for reasonable costs incurred in complying with 
the requirements to support the distribution of geographically targeted 
alerts by commercial mobile service providers).

Background

    Section 3010 of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 directed NTIA to 
establish a National Alert and Tsunami Warning Program and provided up 
to $156 million during fiscal years 2007 through 2012 from the Digital 
Television Transition and Public Safety Act fund to pay for this 
effort. NTIA was directed to implement a unified national alert system 
capable of alerting the public, on a national, regional, or local basis 
to emergency situations by using a variety of communications 
technologies.
    Congress subsequently enacted the WARN Act, Title VI of the SAFE 
Port Act, directing NTIA's expenditure of some of the funds provided 
under Section 3010 of the Deficit Reduction Act. The WARN Act set forth 
requirements to enable alerting capability for commercial mobile 
service providers that voluntarily elect to transmit emergency alerts 
as part of a national emergency alerting system. NTIA was directed to 
fund certain aspects of those activities in section 606 of the WARN 
Act, including compensating public television broadcasters for their 
reasonable costs to comply with the requirements imposed by section 
602(c) of the WARN Act. Section 602(c) directed the Federal 
Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt regulations to require public 
television broadcasters to install necessary equipment and technologies 
on, or as part of, any broadcast television digital signal transmitter 
to enable the distribution of geographically targeted alerts by 
commercial mobile service providers that have elected to transmit 
emergency alerts.
    On July 8, 2008, the FCC adopted rules requiring public television 
stations to install equipment and technologies to enable them to 
distribute geo-targeted emergency alerts to participating CMS 
providers. See The Commercial Mobile Alert System, Second Report and 
Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Second Report), PS 
Dkt. No. 07-087, 23 F.C.C. Rcd. 10765 (July 8, 2008). The Second Report 
specified the functionality that must be built at the nation's public 
television stations and at a central collector to permit the public 
broadcasting system to provide a redundant pathway as one part of a 
national alerting system. The Second Report identified five types of 
equipment (Geo-targeting Systems, Groomers, Data Receivers, PBS 
Equipment, and Back-up Power Equipment) recommended by the Association 
of Public Television Stations (APTS) for this purpose. The Second 
Report also acknowledged that PBS or a similarly situated entity would 
provide the interface feed between the Alert Gateway, the national 
emergency message aggregator through which emergency messages would be 
disseminated, and the public broadcast television stations.
    NTIA received an unsolicited proposal from PBS, which seeks funding 
on behalf of all affected public television stations as well as for 
elements of CMAS to be performed by PBS. APTS, an organization 
representing America's public television stations, has endorsed the 
proposal. The PBS proposal included the elements supported by APTS in 
its FCC filings and discussed by the FCC in the Second Report. NTIA has 
reviewed the PBS proposal pursuant to Department of Commerce policy and 
intends to award PBS a non-competitive grant under the authority of the 
Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 and the WARN Act to cover the costs of 
equipment necessary for public television stations to install equipment 
and systems to comply with the FCC requirements of the Second Report. 
PBS is uniquely qualified and best able to administer this award 
because it manages the national public television interconnection 
system, which will be the redundant pathway used by the public 
television stations for this national emergency alerting system; it has 
the demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with the public 
television stations to implement the project in the limited timeframe 
required by the FCC; and its management has the technical skills to 
implement and administer the project.

    Dated: May 4, 2010.
Bernadette McGuire-Rivera,
Associate Administrator, Office of Telecommunications and Information 
Applications.
[FR Doc. 2010-10923 Filed 5-7-10; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-60-P