Canada's 911 system plagued with problems, urgently needs overhaul, CRTC told Canada's 911 system is plagued with numerous problems, including technology gaps, lack of oversight and inadequate funding, and is in dire need of an overhaul or risks falling apart as telecoms upgrade to new communications systems. That blunt assessment was delivered in a new report, released Thursday, which will form the basis of a sweeping consultation on the future of 911 services by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. The 80-page study entitled, Report on Matters Related to Emergency 911 Services, was prepared for the telecom regulator by former commissioner Timothy Denton. It paints a disturbing picture of "shortcomings" in the 911 system that could potentially put lives at risk especially now that Canadians consumers are flocking to new modes of communications such as smartphones and voice over Internet protocol services. Although some 98 per cent of Canadians are believed to have access to 911 services today, there are still huge swaths of the Far North that do not use that emergency three digit number at a time when economic development in that region has become a priority for the federal government. Underscoring that disparity, telecom providers are already preparing for the introduction of so-called Next Generation 911 services in southern parts of the country that could include text messages, photos, video and perhaps eventually contacting emergency services over social media sites such as Twitter. Although those future standards have yet to be determined, the report found the current system appears ill-equipped to keep pace. "Given that there is an oncoming tsunami of technical change, as we migrate to all-Internet protocol (IP) communications systems, these somewhat haphazard arrangements will be extremely stressed," reads Mr. Denton's report. The change in communications technologies is completely foreseeable; it is happening now. Unfortunately, there does not exist a policy forum adequate to the task of coordinating and anticipating the changes that are coming. Among the key concerns highlighted in the report, there is a lack of accountability over 911 services. There is no central body that oversees the entire system and the CRTC does not have a single staff member that is solely dedicated to working on 911 issues. Currently, governance of the system is based on a disjointed patchwork of collaboration by the CRTC, telcos, provinces, territories and municipal governments. As a result, funding is "uneven" leading to a lack of uniformity of services across the country. The report also pointed to a "lack of co-ordination" of 911 with other agencies that deal with emergency preparedness and public safety. From the point of view of the user, 911 service is one thing, not several. The person calling for help has no interest or concern that one part of the service is under federal jurisdiction and the other is under his or her province's or territory's jurisdiction. He or she cares only about help arriving in a timely fashion," report says. There is even a lack of basic information about how often the system is used. To my knowledge, we do not even know how many 911 calls are made in Canada each year. This is not an acceptable situation," adds the report. There are also key concerns about lingering problems with accurately locating callers that use smartphones or VOIP phones.