CRTC opts for soft deadlines in deployment of E911 by wireless operators

The CRTC has asked Canada’s mobile wireless operators to make their best effort to implement wireless enhanced 911 (E911) service within six to 12 months, but stopped short of imposing firm deadlines for the deployment of the service in Telecom Decision 2003-53. In the August 12 decision, the commission ruled that all wireless service providers, not just wireless CLECs, must offer the service to their subscribers in communities where wireless E911 network access is available from the incumbent telco. Louis Lepage, manager of technology in the CRTC’s telecom branch, tells Report on Wireless that the commission decided to give the carriers some flexibility as opposed to imposing specific implementation dates. "We could have asked for a graduated deployment - like within three months you’ll do 10% of your sites, within six months you’ll do 40% - but we left latitude to the industry. "We informed the industry that our expectations would be that in a period of six months to a year all communities would either be served by the new service or there would be committed service dates for the communities. So we didn’t set explicit deadlines, but we tried to convey expectations to the industry. "But there are many imperatives that the carriers don’t control entirely and also you have to do it simultaneously in many communities and resources are scarce. You want this to be of high quality, so you don’t want people to rush into this." Without any firm deadlines for the implementation of wireless E911, charges have been leveled that the new policy has no teeth and there aren’t any repercussions against wireless operators that don’t comply with the decision. Lepage says leadership on this issue should come from the carriers, adding that the commission is prepared to take a leadership role if it needs to. It’s unclear what that leadership role would be since there aren’t any formal repercussions enunciated in the decision. Responding to questions from some municipalities at a recent meeting about potential non-compliance from carriers, Lepage explains that recourse may be available if no headway on service deployment is made after dialogue between the municipality and carrier is completed. "Within six months to a year, if you either don’t have the service available or some indication as to when it will be available, maybe you have recourse," he says. The commission also used the decision to clarify a number of points. It found that it would be inappropriate to continue to require wireless CLECs to enter subscriber records in automatic location identifier (ALI) databases. Essentially, home addresses aren’t relevant to a public safety call centre receiving a call from a wireless phone subscriber, the commission ruled. The CRTC also directed wireless carriers to maintain toll-free access to at least one of their operation centres that is staffed 24 hours a day seven days a week. This, the commission writes in the decision, is "in order to promptly assist authorized public safety answering point personnel seeking subscriber information in emergency situations." The commission also ordered the operators to provide their subscribers with information regarding "the availability, characteristics and limitations of the wireless emergency service that they provide."

CRTC opts for soft deadlines in deployment of E911 by wireless operators

News | August 26, 2003

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