Talking Point re CAP and CEA "Public Alert"

[Art Botterell <acb@incident.com>]

Friends -

As we introduce CAP, questions may come up about how CAP relates to 
the Consumer Electronic Association's "Public Alert" specification 
released last year.  If I may suggest a few basic talking points:

1) The CEA spec describes one particular warning system... basically, 
Weather Radio receivers embedded within various consumer devices. 
CAP provides a general data format that can be used to coordinate and 
integrate many different kinds of alerting systems.

2) CEA and PPW coordinated early on to make sure that CAP would be 
fully compatible with the CEA spec as well as the EAS and Weather 
Radio specifications that "Public Alert" extends.

3) The more detailed data in the CAP format allows greater 
flexibility, more precise targeting and better customized messaging 
to special-needs audiences than previous alerting specifications... 
in anticipation that future alerting technologies will be even more 
capable than current ones.

4) In the near term, CAP will most frequently be used mostly in 
warning control systems to coordinate the activation of a wide range 
of systems:  "Public Alert," EAS, sirens, selective telephone 
notification, wireless messaging, etc.  (It may be that some end-user 
or "consumer" alerting products will use CAP internally, but those 
internal details won't be apparent to the end-user anyway.)  And CAP 
has other applications within emergency information management 
systems that don't directly involve public warning.

5) Bottom line is that CAP and "Public Alert" fit perfectly together 
in an overall architecture for effective public alerting and 
emergency information.

Hope you find this useful should the question come up.

- Art