Telecoms oppose remedies in NG911 Part 1 applications

The major telecommunications companies in Canada oppose suggestions that they pay for pre-production testing of next-generation 911 (NG911) technology. They laid out the specifics in interventions regarding two Part 1 applications. The City of Calgary filed its application in October; the province of British Columbia filed a separate case in September. The CRTC has combined the two applications and is considering them together. Rogers Communications Inc. said that public safety answering points (PSAPs) are wrong in demanding incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) deploy test environments for NG911 and adjust 911 rates accordingly. “Rogers also believes that pre-production testing environments should be funded by municipal and/or provincial authorities, and not via tariffed ILECs NG911 rates,” Howard Slawner, vice-president of telecom for the Toronto firm wrote. The NG911 tariffs are already too high, he asserted, and not all PSAPs will benefit from pre-production testing environments. During the three-year transition period, telecom providers will shell out $300 million to BCE Inc., Telus Corp. and Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corp., Slawner added. These fees are not passed on to end-users. Bell disputed that pre-production testing will avail anything. “No test environment can completely replicate the production environment,” the company wrote. “The establishment of a complete end-to-end parallel test environment would be an extremely costly and resource intensive endeavour for all stakeholders.” Telus said its testing includes interoperability with originating network providers (ONPs) and call-handling solution (CHS) platforms. It is not designed to accommodate the testing the PSAPs are asking for. Such pre-production testing is unnecessary, the western telecom stated. “Telus has limited availability within its NG911 lab, but with thoughtful scheduling, access for the six CHS vendors and testing for original network providers, along with Telus’ own testing needs can be accommodated,” it said. “As a result, Telus is able to accommodate pre-production testing for CHS vendors and ONPs, but does not have the capacity to facilitate pre-production testing for PSAPs.” Changes to the system would mean upgrading the labs. The cost of that would be significant, Telus argued. Sasktel also implored the commission to reject the applications. “Granting the applicants request will introduce additional cost into the deployment of NG911 that will be recovered from consumers through the NG911 tariffs with little to no benefit being provided to residents of Saskatchewan,” the prairie firm said. “Therefore, the applicants' request should be denied.” The province of Ontario is worried that the ILECs are not prepared to do pre-production testing. “Ontario considers the risk of performing testing in a live environment to be unacceptable with no mitigation strategies possible,” it wrote. “The lack of a test environment for critical 911 services exponentially increases the risk of negatively impacting the safety, security, and lives of Ontarians.” The Canadian NG911 coalition intervened in support of the PSAPs’ approach. “The coalition strongly believes an end-to-end NG911 pre-production environment is critical for the transition to NG911,” it stated. “Any NG911 changes that have not been tested in a pre-production environment could put the whole 911 system in Canada at risk.” The Edmonton-based group endorsed the notion of ILECs picking up the tab for testing. “These costs are an investment in the future stability and success of the NG911 network in Canada. An end-to-end NG911 pre-production testing environment will mitigate transition risks, follow best practices, and ensure consistency across Canada.” –Reporting by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca and editing by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca

Telecoms oppose remedies in NG911 Part 1 applications

News | November 16, 2023

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Telecoms oppose remedies in NG911 Part 1 applications

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