Two sad stories this past weekend; young men perishing on their way home from parties overcome by the harsh realities of the Canadian winter. My sympathies go out to their families and friends, but this story is not about them. May they rest in peace.
The Globe and Mail has instigated a campaign criticizing Canadian wireless telephone service providers, and the regulatory authorities, over the operation of the 9-1-1 emergency call system. The basic issue is that mobile phone technology could be used to locate wireless phone users when they are lost along a lonely highway, in the wilderness or wherever. The Globe series argues that such a system is in place in the USA and only the greed of Canada’s wireless providers, with the complicity of the government, is keeping it from Canadians. The Globe also goes on at length about the fees wireless phone users pay for 9-1-1 service that the companies may or may not be investing in the system. These are two distinct issues but the Globe chooses to treat them as one and the same.
Wireless phone locating is possible based on the principle of triangulation, a concept that should be understood by anyone who took even basic geometry. It’s possible to measure the time it takes for a signal to travel from a stationary wireless phone transmission tower to a phone and back again to determine where the phone is located currently. One tower and you can locate a phone to somewhere in a large circle radiating from the tower. Two towers and a slightly more accurate location is possible. Three towers and location can be very accurate – even to within one hundred metres or so if the towers are close enough together.
Understand this and you can understand why wireless location works well in the USA. Hundreds of millions of phone users and hundreds of thousands of transmission towers concentrated in a significantly smaller geographic area. All those signals flying back and forth, some smart computer programming and, bingo, you can tell where every phone is very quickly. And so the Globe concludes that it is only money and greed preventing Canadian wireless providers from doing the same.
In none of the Globe reports do I recall the author giving the wireless operators an opportunity to explain if or how such a system would operate in Canada, especially in remote areas. The Globe has never addressed whether the system works in rural and wilderness areas in the USA which might be more comparable to most of Canada.
Using my own wireless phone and a service provided by Google Maps, I can determine my location anywhere there is a wireless signal. In the city, it pinpoints me to within about 100 metres. If I were missing and this information could be accessed by searchers, it would be a big help. When I travel to visit my mother in rural southwestern Ontario, the system pinpoints my to within 5 kilometres (bear in mind, southwestern Ontario has a high concentration of wireless services and users compared to of the country). Now that's a pretty big circle to start searching and probably no more useful than information from the last person(s) to see me. The Globe has consistently failed to explain this. I can only assume it’s because it doesn’t fit with the theme of the reports; wireless companies are “ripping off” Canadians.
This morning the Globe carries a front page, above the fold, headline that a 9-1-1 upgrade would have saved the life of a Williams Lake, BC, teen who became lost in the woods on his way home from a January 1 party. The sources cited are the teen’s 17 year-old girl friend and distraught relatives. Williams Lake is a remote community, basically accessible by one highway, in the BC interior. How many wireless transmission towers are there around Williams Lake? Enough to triangulate? The report notes the victim’s phone went unanswered soon after he had called 9-1-1 to report that he was lost. Did he run out of battery power? A “dead” phone can’t be located.
These are the questions the Globe reporters, Katherine O’Neil and Wendy Stueck, should have asked before writing their story. Did they call Telus Mobility or Rogers Wireless for comment? In fact, it’s easy to check on-line the location of wireless transmission towers in Canada. Telus and Rogers each have ONE transmitter in Williams Lake with second towers far north and south of the town. There are not sufficient towers in that mountain valley to facilitate triangulation. Did their editor demand verification of the claim that Canada’s 9-1-1 system led to the youth’s death? Did the editor require that the reporters support their sensation story with facts?
Consumer reports that deem to stand-up for the little guy in a struggle with big corporations are popular press, help sell newspapers and support advertising rates and profits. Especially when they get front-page placement. But they are at high risk for being little more than trash-journalism. They are not the standard most Globe readers expect of their newspaper. They are not the standard we deserve. Shame on the Globe for printing them.
O’Neil and Stueck are to blame for sloppy reporting, their editor is to blame for permitting them to get away with it. Readers are to blame when they don’t speak out to object.
UPDATE: William's Lake RCMP, in a media release dated Jan 14, 2009, stated their contact with Telus in this incident revealed that “triangulation was not possible because there is only one tower in the area”. The RCMP called Telus. Did The Globe and Mail, or did the reporters get the same answer but that did not support their hysterical story?
