By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Innovation Canada is searching for a contractor to examine what other jurisdictions do or wish to do in cases where telecommunications services are threatened by hazards.
The department on Friday released a contract opportunity, bids for which will close on December 5, that seeks to “evaluate the regulatory, policy, guidelines and compliance measures for telecommunications reliability from all-hazards implemented or under consideration in other similar jurisdictions to make recommendations that are suitable for the Canadian telecommunications environment,” according to a description of the requirement.
The department has already extended invites to bid on the contract, which includes the major accounting firms.
ISED Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne is coming off meetings with the telecommunications companies following a Rogers network outage this summer that knocked major services for millions of Canadians.
In September, Champagne announced that a formal agreement was reached by the large telecommunications companies that will see them share their networks and equipment with each other in the event of a major outage, including allowing one company’s customers to roam on another company’s wireless networks.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission in September mandated a historically voluntary program called the Mandatory Disaster Response Initiative that requires wireless service providers to assist each other in the event of emergencies.
