Canada Govt. Sets Phase II 911 Deadline

The Canadian government has issued regulations that set a Feb. 1, 2010 deadline for the nation’s cellular carriers and PSAPs to implement 911 location services, commonly termed Phase II. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) decision comes in the wake of several high-profile incidents in the past year where cellular 911 calls could not be located and callers died. In its decision, the CRTC overruled a request from the cellular industry to delay the deadline until PSAPs implement mapping software, saying that X,Y latitude-latitude coordinates are temporarily sufficient for locating callers. The commission also maintained the current funding scheme, where PSAPs pay for their portions of the network, and the cellular companies recover their costs from subscribers. Read the entire CRTC decision here.