Canada’s 9-1-1 access by wireless carriers and VoIP phone companies is so inadequate that it may have led to three deaths and may have worsened several serious injuries in 2008 alone.

 

An investigation by the (Toronto) Globe and Mail found that a lack of federal oversight, regulatory loopholes and outdated technology have left Canada’s 9-1-1 dispatchers “scrambling to locate callers who dial 911 from cell phones or from Internet phones.”

 

The paper pointed to a 39-year-old man beaten and dumped in a field he did not recognize near Brooks, Alta. He called 9-1-1 from a cell phone. Police found his body two days later.

 

The article also cited the case Elijah Luck, the 18-month son of Melvin and Khadija Luck of Calgary, Alta. When Elijah stopped breathing and began turning blue the family called 9-1-1 but their IP carrier’s contact center mistakenly dispatched an ambulance to the Lucks' old address near Toronto. Paramedics arrived nearly 30 minutes later and rushed the child to hospital but he died there. In Canada IP 9-1-1 calls are handled by the carriers.

 

"The doctors said if the ambulance had come within five minutes, my baby might be alive,” Mr. Luck told the newspaper. “There are no guarantees, but I believe that he would still be here."

 

Government officials have long been aware of the problems said the paper. In 2004 the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) was alerted to at least 72 similar mix-ups involving 9-1-1 calls made from Internet phones. Those included an Arizona 9-1-1 call mistakenly connected to dispatchers in Toronto and several emergency calls from Ontario and Quebec that couldn't be traced.

 

These dangerous deficiencies come at a time of growing wireless and IP phone use in Canada. The paper said there are now nearly 21 million wireless subscribers while some 250,000 homes have IP. Yet more than half of all 911 calls placed each year are made on cell phones. IP is especially extremely popular amongst Canada’s large and growing immigrant population as it permits them to make inexpensive calls to other countries.

 

Yet affordable, proven, and practical GPS technology used in the US, and required beginning in 2001 that allow dispatchers to find wireless users, and which could have saved these lives or prevented the injuries from becoming worse has not been deployed in Canada.

 

Also, IP providers could cross-reference IP and on-file billing addresses that would enable emergency services to reach the right homes, a move that the paper said the CRTC “never even contemplated”. Comwave, which supplied the Luck family, has done following the newspaper investigation. Contact center agents could have been better trained as well. The carrier admitted to the paper that its staff are not as well-trained as 9-1-1 dispatchers.

 

There are no signs that Canada is about to follow in the U.S. footsteps in passing a bill similar to the New and Emerging Technologies 911 Improvement Act of 2008 (NET 911). The bill, signed last summer by President Bush, requires IP-enabled carriers to provide 9-1-1 service, including enhanced 9-1-1 service, to their subscribers. It also lays the groundwork for a national IP-enabled emergency network.

 

In both the wireless and IP cases the CRTC had such proposals, revealed the paper, but never implemented them in the face of industry foot-dragging, even though the costs: $50 million for GPS and $80 million for the IP billing changes, would have been miniscule compared with wireless and IP revenues.

 

Also, Canada's wireless companies collect a total of about $157 million/year from 9-1-1 fees. Those charges are between 50 cents and $1 per month in most provinces.

 

While a portion of that money, about 10 cents, goes toward the 9-1-1 system, the CRTC does not regulate where the rest goes, says the Globe and Mail. These fees have long been controversial; while the telcos use them to cover various 9-1-1 costs they are not required to disclose where it is spent. An internal Industry Canada document indicates the government was advised that the money is ‘retained as additional revenue’ by the wireless companies.

 

The newspaper had contacted the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (News - Alert), which represents the cell carriers, which it says has insisted public funds be used to update Canada's 9-1-1 infrastructure, rather than phone company money.

 

“’I'm not suggesting that the wireless industry has no interest in providing this,’” Keith McIntosh, director of regulatory affairs for the association told The Globe and Mail. “’The quickest way to get it deployed is to make resources available so that it's not a decision between expanding your network — an investment where there is a possibility of return — or this public service.’”

 

The billing solution is the most easily available and quickly deployed technology to help ensure that IP users get 9-1-1 services. The industry had expressed concerns that requiring them to install technologies to automatically route calls to 9-1-1 contact centers would have made them less competitive.

 

Until the CRTC acts on its own or prompted by strict new federal legislation, wireless and IP users in Canada are still at risk.

 

Judy Broomfield, the head of Toronto's 9-1-1 dispatch center, told the newspapers that more tragedies are inevitable.

 

"Right now there is no way to prevent another Calgary, “she said. " I can sadly guarantee that. We have this happen all the time. We just haven't had anybody [else] die yet."