An emergency cellphone call in southwest B.C. can be tracked to within 300 metres or less under new 911 technology required across the country by today by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.
The so-called Wireless Phase 11 technology enables the regional emergency communication centre to plot the latitude and longitude coordinates of a 911 call on a computerized map.
However the technology does not pinpoint a caller's exact location or an exact address. “Callers themselves still remain the best source of information and they should always be prepared to provide their exact location themselves,” Doug Watson, E-Comm's vice president of operations, stated in a news release.
The E-Comm centre have been working with the Wireless Phase 11 technology for a few months, Ms. Robertson also said. The communication centre wanted its staff well trained well before the Olympics, she said, referring to the Winter Games that open on Feb. 12.
Previously, the emergency centre could only locate the nearest cell tower to a 911 tower. But cell towers are several kilometers apart and the locations were of little use to emergency services.
The CRTC gave mobile network operators until February to upgrade technology to enable 911 dispatchers to pinpoint locations of emergency cellphone calls. In the next stage of the CRTC-mandated upgrade, new technology will be introduced that enables mid-call location updates from callers in moving vehicles and from out-of-country cell phone users
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