AWARN urges FCC to keep ATSC 3.0 security enabled for EAS test

By Daniel Okafor

Eighteen million ATSC 3.0 receivers and set-top boxes verified for content security could potentially decode the Nov. 17 U.S. Emergency Alert System (EAS) test, AWARN told the FCC.

In a Nov. 1 ex parte filing, the Advanced Warning and Response Network Alliance called Silicondust’s request to disable ATSC 3.0 content protection “inappropriate” because it would create “artificial test conditions.” Executive Director Dave Arland said the dispute concerns decoder capability, not an absence of emergency-alert transmission.

Why Silicondust wants A3SA disabled

Silicondust’s Oct. 26 letter to the FCC said broadcasters were preventing some ATSC 3.0, or NextGen TV, viewers from receiving the test alert. The company singled out owners of the HDHomeRun and HDHomeRun Flex set-top boxes.

The technical issue is specific. Those products cannot decode programming protected by the ATSC 3.0 Security Authority, or A3SA. Silicondust characterized that protection as a private access barrier.

AWARN disputes that framing. Protected ATSC 3.0 broadcasts work no differently from protected services distributed through cable, satellite and telecom networks. The dispute therefore concerns receiver decoding capability, not proof that broadcasters have withheld the alert signal or violated applicable emergency-alert obligations under the existing rules.

Silicondust asked the FCC to disable content security before and during the Nov. 17 test. AWARN says that would establish only that a few thousand set-top receivers are not properly equipped to use all ATSC 3.0 capabilities, including protected-content decoding.

What would disabling protection measure?

Arland said the test should proceed as planned to ensure signals are properly transmitted, received and decoded by devices designed for protected broadcasts. A test with encryption disabled would not measure how those devices behave under standard operating conditions, which AWARN says is the condition the FCC should test.

AWARN warns that switching off A3SA encryption would obscure emergency-alert performance and interfere with normal broadcast operations. It would also impose economic and operational burdens on broadcasters while delivering no lasting public-safety benefit, the alliance argued.

The filing frames the test’s purpose as verifying nationwide alert delivery and standard receiver interoperability, rather than accommodating hardware that cannot decode protected ATSC 3.0 content. For broadcasters, compliance and decoder compatibility remain separate issues.

Which receivers should receive the alert?

AWARN expects EAS signaling in both ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 transmissions. The alliance expects easy reception by ATSC 1.0 televisions and set-top receivers, plus NextGen TV-certified and A3SA-security-verified consumer receivers.

The scale of AWARN’s claim is 18 million 3.0 televisions and set-top boxes verified for content security, a base the alliance says can potentially receive and decode the EAS test. That figure supplies the numerical basis for its opposition to Silicondust’s request.

By contrast, AWARN said incompatible Silicondust devices would receive and display nothing when decoding protected channels. It added that those viewers would not be watching the protected channels during the National EAS Test or afterward, limiting the practical effect of the decoding failure.

Does the filing establish a compliance failure?

No, according to AWARN. The alliance said Silicondust has not demonstrated that broadcasters are failing to meet their EAS obligations.

“One receiver’s inability to decode protected ATSC 3.0 programming does not, by itself, establish a failure to transmit a required emergency message,” AWARN said.

The rules do not require broadcasters to modify otherwise lawful transmission configurations to accommodate receivers unable to decode protected services, AWARN said in its Nov. 1 filing. Its submission therefore asks the FCC to leave the test conditions intact.

Content protection was designed from the start as a standard feature to prevent illicit distribution of broadcast signals. Disabling it for one test would not change that design or demonstrate a broadcaster failure, AWARN argued.

The next operational checkpoint is the planned Nov. 17 nationwide EAS test, which AWARN says should proceed with A3SA protection intact and normal broadcast configurations.