Rogers commits to pay its own freight on wireless E911

Rogers Communications Inc. is rebutting claims by the daily press that it, along with the other wireless carriers, want taxpayer money to pay for the deployment of next-generation Enhanced 911 (E911) systems. Ken Engelhart, senior VP of regulatory and government affairs, says no one from the national newspaper called to inquire about Rogers' willingness to pay for the network upgrades. "I don't know where this story came from because we've never asked anyone to pay for Phase 2 E911," he tells Report on Wireless. Rogers wasn't party to any discussions that raised the issue of who will pay for implementing the system, Engelhart adds. A series of articles in one of the country's national newspapers accused the wireless carriers and the CRTC of dragging their feet on deploying the next-generation of wireless 911 location technology. The articles said the entire country could have a newly enhanced wireless 911 system for about $50 million, using technology that has been deployed in the United States. The firestorm the articles cause forced the CRTC into action, which has since instituted a deadline of February 2010 for the availability of newer E911 services. Representatives from Bell Canada and Telus Corp. didn't return phone calls requesting information about their Phase 2 E911 development and deployment initiatives. Bell began testing its Phase 2 E911 system in 2005 and was still in testing last May. Rogers to rollout Phase 2 E911 in May For the past 18 months, Rogers has been working on a new wireless 911 location system that would meet requirements for Phase 2 E911. The company plans to rollout it out on a commercial basis this May once testing is complete. "The number one concern we have is for the safety of our customers," says Bob Berner, Rogers CTO. "We've spent millions of dollars going forward with this, starting well beyond any regulatory requirement for it because it does take time to deploy these technologies." Rogers is going to deploy a hybrid GPS-network triangulation system that will provide flexibility and back-up to deal with various situations. GPS will be the predominant technology used and will allow Rogers to transmit locations of 911 callers to within 20 metres. GPS won't work in all cases because of building shadowing in urban locations or when people fall out of view of satellites in highly wooded areas or in valleys. In this case, network triangulation will serve as a backup. While it won't be as accurate, the location of wireless callers could be within 200 metres. "For handsets that have GPS in them, we'll use GPS coordinates," says Berner. "If that fails because of circumstances it reverts to network triangulation. And for customers who don't have GPS in their handsets, we'll use network triangulation for all of them." Wireless carriers only one leg of the stool Initially, newly enhanced location capabilities may only be available in certain parts of the country. Berner explains that for the system to work to its fullest extent, three elements need to come together. At a first level, the cell phone providers have be able to send to the location information of the 911 caller. Second, the telephone companies need to interconnect with the public safety answering points (PSAPs) to send that location information along with voice connectivity, and then lastly, PSAPs have to be able to receive, read and then transmit that information to the public safety agencies - fire, ambulance and police. "All those three legs have to be ready and have to be fully integration tested in order to offer that service commercially," Berner says. "At this point in time, there are a number of PSAPs in Canada who claim that they have the capability - that's what they tell us. But there has as yet to been no interoperability testing with them." Rogers has already started testing its system with a telco and anticipates testing with PSAPs may not be that far off. But for this type of enhanced wireless location capability to become widespread throughout Canada, all PSAPs will need to upgrade their own systems and according to Berner, there aren't many ready to handle the new generation of wireless location services. CRTC will report next month on Phase 2 E911 When the CRTC announced that it would impose a deadline for the wireless carriers to implement Phase 2 E911, it said it would release full details in February. Engelhart says the CRTC plan will likely approve the items on which parties to the CRTC Interconnection Steering Committee (CISC) reached consensus, make a determination on the non-consensus issues and then launch a process to deal with any of the outstanding matters. One issue that will be on the docket will be how new entrants and their customers that roam onto an incumbent wireless network are treated. The CISC determined that it would be best to proceed with a two stage approach. In the first stage, location information for roaming customers wouldn't be passed along. But that would be enabled in the second and final stage. Engelhart says that Rogers' system will be able to provide the location of all customers on its network regardless of whether they are Rogers' customers or those of a roaming partner. Last word "The thing to bear in mind is even with mandates in the US this was a multiyear program to get all the capabilities ready in the PSAPs, in the telephone companies and the wireless providers," explains Berner. "I think by virtue of the work we've done we're well positioned on the wireless side. As to how far the PSAPs can and will move and how quickly, we can't comment on this at this point in time."

Rogers commits to pay its own freight on wireless E911

News | 01/19/2009 8:54 pm EST

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