From: wollman@bimajority.org   
      
   In article ,   
   Fred Atkinson  wrote:   
   >> Garrett Wollmann  wrote:   
   >>> Fred Atkinson  wrote:   
   >>> You are splitting hairs here in a semantics issue.   
   >   
   >>> Suppose the cellular infrastructure is down due to an attack on our   
   >>> nation.   
   >   
   >>> Think you are going to get those alerts then?   
   >   
   >> Such an attack would also take out the broadcast infrastructure,   
   >> which is a lot more physically concentrated and easier to disrupt.   
   >   
   >Maybe, or maybe not.   
   >   
   >No doubt some of the stations would [go] down.   
   >   
   >But maybe not all of them.   
   >   
   >They are not entirely dependent upon network programming.   
      
   You might be surprised how many radio stations, after conditioned   
   analog lines and ISDN ceased to be available for new installs from   
   ILECs, came to depend on the Internet for their studio-transmitter   
   links, especially now when it's audio-over-IP all the way from the   
   mixing console to the transmitter.   
      
   Many radio transmitter sites have just a commodity Internet connection   
   that feeds their remote control and the transmitter: no Internet =   
   station off the air.  More profitable stations, especially those that   
   haven't moved around a lot, may have an analog microwave path for   
   backup, or even an optical wide-area network, but this costs a lot   
   more money and is hard for many engineering managers to justify to   
   barely-profitable companies constantly seeking to cut costs.   
      
   The "primary entry point" stations, of which there are currently 77,   
   have received substantial capital investment from FEMA to support the   
   survivability of their transmitter sites.  These stations monitor a   
   FEMA radio system for presidential emergency messages, but most people   
   do not listen to them, and would depend on other stations receiving   
   and relaying emergency alerts.  Each of these stations has an   
   emergency studio that would allow station personnel to go on the air   
   -- if they could get to the transmitter site -- as well as a diesel   
   generator with a multi-day fuel supply.   
      
   -GAWollman   
      
   --   
   Garrett A. Wollman    | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,   
   wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future.  This is   
   Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."   
   my employers.         | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)