I JUST FINISHED READING your e911 article and response from Rogers Communications. I find this interesting because I am a volunteer firefighter and EMS first responder in the small community of Delisle just 40 kms from Saskatoon.
I can speak to how things work in the (regional municipality) of Vanscoy and I suspect it works in a similar manner for other RM’s in the province. If you are in the RM of Vanscoy and you call 911, the operator will ask a few questions to determine the nature of the incident and your location. As soon as they understand the location is not in Saskatoon, they pass the call to MD Ambulance Communications.
In the case of a fire, MD Ambulance will call our fire chief with the information. Our chief then sends a text message to a computer in the town office, the town office computer forwards that message to all the firefighters in our system and we respond. I set up this computer and the message rules for forwarding the test messages using Outlook Express. This seems to work okay for us and all firefighters are notified within a minute of the fire chief getting the call.
That is, if the SaskTel text-to-email and email-to-text is working. I have been told by SaskTel in the past that there is a software or hardware problem that they have been trying to resolve with the vendors. It’s been working well for the past three or four months now.
In the case of a medical call (first responders), MD Ambulance has the ability to send the text message directly to the first responders – if they are on the SaskTel network. I am told by MD Ambulance IT technician, they do not have the ability to text on the Rogers network, and I suspect this would be the same for Virgin, or Fido, etc. So because I am a Rogers subscriber, I only get a notification if another first responder phones me to tell me there is a medical call or if MD gets no response to the text message on the SaskTel network, they may start making phone calls to try and get someone they can not page.
I am not sure if this is a true technical problem, or if the software used by MD was purchased from SaskTel and so only works with SaskTel.
Interesting to watch this unfold.
Darcy Parker
Yourlink
Saskatoon
