Fredericton fire exposes 911 cellphone problem
Wireless firms must provide technology to locate callers: province
Last Updated: Thursday, July 2, 2009 | 12:04 PM AT
CBC News
A Fredericton-area woman is fortunate that fire crews were able to locate her burning home Wednesday after she passed out while trying to give her address over a cellphone.
Cellphones are a weak link in New Brunswick's 911 system because, unlike landlines, they do not give emergency crews information about the location of the caller.
The 46-year-old woman called 911 on her cellphone to report a fire at her home in Lincoln, outside Fredericton. When she was overcome by smoke, she couldn't give her address.
Oromocto fire Chief Jody Price said the situation became serious as the woman passed out a couple of times.
She eventually gave her address and the 911 dispatch service directed fire crews to the home on Black Duck Drive in time to rescue the woman.
Price said she was taken to hospital in serious condition.
February deadline
Under a recent ruling by the federal broadcast regulator, the CRTC, wireless network operators have until February to provide location-based information during 911 calls.
But a report released this week by IDC Canada suggests most mobile phone users won't have the benefit of the enhanced 911 service because their phones either need to be GPS-enabled or their wireless service providers would have to deploy technology network-wide to better pinpoint locations.
Price said the cellphone problem has concerned emergency officials for some time as more people use mobile phones as their primary phones.
"There's no address, there's no GPS identifiers in New Brunswick on the cellphones that we can use," Price said.
"So when somebody calls 911 on a cellphone, unless someone can tell us where they're at, we have no way of doing that, and I think it just went down to excellent skills on the 911 dispatcher's side."
Lisa Harrity, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety, said it is up to the wireless providers to come up with the technology to give location data to dispatch centres, not the provincial government.
"Basically, once the cellular service providers ... have the capability to provide us with the data, we'll be able to enhance the system," Harrity said.
