Election Whether to Participate in the Wireless Emergency Alert System

The Commission is requesting approval of non-substantive changes associated with multilingual Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) in collection OMB Control No. 3060-1113. OMB previously approved FCC rules that require commercial mobile service providers participating in WEA to support the pre-installation and display of templates of common alert messages on WEA-capable devices in the 13 most commonly spoken languages, as well as English and American Sign Language (ASL). On January 8, 2025, the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau adopted a Report and Order that further implemented these requirements by identifying the specific templates that these CMS providers must implement, requiring the written templates to be fillable with specific information provided by alert originators, and requiring non-English templates displayed on WEA-capable devices to be followed by the display of corresponding English fillable templates. This collection will (a) provide Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs) in the 13 most spoken languages other than English in the U.S.; (b) renew CMS providers' election regarding whether or not to participate in WEA: (c) require that WEA messages include location-aware maps; and (d) establish an FCC-maintained WEA database of participating providers and the areas they serve.

The latest form for Election Whether to Participate in the Wireless Emergency Alert System expires 2027-08-31 and can be found here.

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Federal Enterprise Architecture: Disaster Management - Emergency Response