GATINEAU – As anticipated, the CRTC has given Canadian wireless providers one year to upgrade their 911 services.
By February 1, 2010, emergency responders must be able to determine the location of a person using a cell phone to call 911 “with much greater precision”, Monday’s CRTC announcement read.
"With more than 20 million wireless subscribers in Canada, it is imperative that emergency responders can quickly and accurately locate those who use their cell phones to call 911," said CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein, in the statement. "I am pleased that the industry has come forward with a technical solution, and that there is now nothing standing in the way of the implementation of enhanced 911 features. The safety and security of Canadians will be greatly improved as a result."
Current 911 services rely on the position of the cell phone tower nearest to the caller, meaning emergency responders are only able to determine if a caller is in a sector within the area served by the tower, and not a specific area or location.
But the enhanced features coming over the next 12 months will use wireless-location technology such as GPS or triangulation technology, meaning emergency responders can receive a caller’s location within a radius of 10 to 300 metres.
Wireless service providers must inform their customers of the availability, characteristics and limitations of their enhanced 911 services before they are implemented, the announcement continued, and reiterate them on an annual basis thereafter.
New wireless service providers entering the Canadian market after February 1, 2010 will be required to support the enhanced 911 features from launch.
