THUNDER BAY — The Thunder Bay Police Service is welcoming financial support from the province for the implementation of Next Generation 911 service.
The enhanced 911 service is mandated across the country by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission.
It will enable voice, text messages and data to flow seamlessly from the public to 911 communications centres in the event of an emergency.
NG911 will also give emergency operators and dispatchers the ability to identify the location of a call using GPS coordinates, resulting in a faster response.
Emergency communications centres across Ontario have until March 2025 to transition their networks from analog to digital.
To help pay the costs of the required technology and infrastructure upgrades, the Ministry of the Solicitor General announced a $392,000 grant to Thunder Bay Police.
"We're very grateful for it because it's very expensive," said Brian Lofts, communications manager at the 911 dispatch centre. "We've undertaken quite a few costs already, and there's going to be quite a few more that we're going to incur in the future."
Work on the upgraded system started a few years ago, when the city estimated new infrastructure would cost only $120,000.
It also projected that the cost of additional staff would be about $400,000 a year.
Lofts said Wednesday that progress was slowed after the CRTC realized during the COVID pandemic that some advancements weren't happening as expected.
But since then, he said, "We've gone through lots of planning, lots of upgrades on our system to be ready to go for this cutover. We're well on target. We're actually farther ahead than many other agencies."
Lofts believes the city's 911 communications centre will actually be ready to start implementation by the middle of next year, which is months ahead of the deadline.
"We'll be on what's called the ESInet. So it will be 911-ready at that time, and we'll be ready for the next stages into RTT, which is the real-time texting."
ESInets are Next Generation 911 internet protocol networks used by emergency telecommunications services.
Lofts said the project is among the most significant improvements in the 911 system in years, in that the technology is completely changed, and that — for people needing to use it — "it's going to lead into photos and videos in the future. It's embracing technology. It's getting away from a traditional phone line on to the computer."
