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Canadian Wireless Priority Service - Preliminary Study
Canadian Wireless Priority Service
Preliminary Study
Version 1.5Written By:
André LeBon
B.Sc, M.Sc Computer & Telecommunication Consultant Gestimed Inc.
Industry Canada
July 2003
Revision Sheet
Revision Description
- Rev. 0.1
January 24, 2003
First draft
- Rev. 0.2
February 14, 2003
Second draft
- Rev. 0.3
March 7, 2003
Third draft
- Rev. 1.0
March 27, 2003
First released version
- Rev. 1.1
March 28, 2003
Minor corrections
- Rev. 1.2
March 28, 2003
Editorial changes
- Rev. 1.3
March 31, 2003
Minor changes
- Rev. 1.4
April 10, 2003
Addition of technical information
- Rev. 1.5
June 16, 2003
Minor syntax corrections
- Rev. 1.6
July 21, 2003
Format changes and rewording
Canadian WPS Feasibility Study
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION
This preliminary study was completed in order for decision makers in the Canadian government to understand the possibilities and implications of offering Wireless Priority Service (WPS) to Canadian emergency personnel.
In March 2000, OCIPEP produced a report on mobile telephone services for the emergency management community and one of its conclusions is that "One of the most critical performance-related requirements is priority access". Among other things, the report recommended that: "To achieve true wireless priority access in this new integrated environment, priority access treatment ultimately will have to be established throughout all network segments - wireline and wireless - to ensure call completion on an end-to-end basis." The wireless priority service presented in this report fulfils this recommendation.
As noted in [4] , "Emergency workers often have their own radio systems, but systems used by different agencies are often incompatible, and wireless phones often become a ubiquitous and compatible backup system. But during emergencies, wireless systems often become overloaded to the point that emergency workers have trouble getting critical calls through".
The main advantages of WPS based on commercial mobile telephone over private wireless networks are the ubiquity of the service and the ability to offer seamless interoperability on a multi-disciplinary and multi-jurisdictional basis.
This report will first explain the Wireless Priority Service (WPS) program in the United States, and provide an overview of the Canadian wireless industry in order to understand the implications of a similar program in Canada. Finally, it will list and comment on the possibility of a Canadian version of WPS.
1 Commercial Mobile Telephone Services and the Canadian Emergency Management Community: Prospect and Challenges for the coming Decade : A document that covers the Canadian industry structure, that gives technical and regulatory overview of the wireless sector and that covers various aspects of wireless usage for emergency personnel. Please refer to [6]
2 WIRELESS PRIORITY SERVICE (WPS)
In the last 10 years, the National Communication System (NCS) has been working actively to provide improved telecommunication services over public facilities for emergency agencies in the United States. After GETS, they developed, with the wireless industry, the Wireless Priority Service (WPS). This section describes the terminology, the technology, the various flavours of the service and the status of the WPS program in the United States.
2.1 Early version of WPS
The first version of WPS that was used for the Salt Lake City Olympics was very much like Line Load Control (LLC) on the PTSN. It was activated manually and, when activated, restricted wireless access to a list of pre-subscribed priority users.
2.2 WPS Initial Operating Capability
The second version of WPS is called Initial Operating Capability (IOC) and, similar to Priority Access for Dialing (PAD) on the PSTN, it gives priority access to pre-subscribed users. The major differences from PAD are that five levels of priority that exist to distinguish user types and an activation code (*272) is required to activate the priority access function. But, as with PAD, once users have accessed the network, there is nothing identifying the call as a priority.
Currently, NCS is contemplating WPS for two wireless technologies: Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). For GSM, nationwide IOC software development began in July 2002 and installation of this software in commercial mobile radio service provider network switches started in November 2002. The US Government has contracted several wireless switch vendors (including Ericsson, Nokia, and Nortel Networks) to include the IOC priority capability features in their switches on an expedited schedule.
2.3 WPS Final Operating Capability
The third version of WPS is the Final Operating Capability (FOC) and is essentially the service recommended by OCIPEP in a report produced in 2000-4. It is a service that offers end-to-end priority that provides increased call completion both from and to a wireless phone. Namely: access priority, network priority and egress priority.
There are two complementary features for WPS access: ACCESS and QUEUING:
- For ACCESS, the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) inside the phone needs to be 'set-up' specifically for a WPS handset:
2
For more information on GETS (Government Emergency Telecommunication Service), please refer to [8]
3
Specific information on the American program can be found at [31]
4
Commercial Mobile Telephone Services and the Canadian Emergency Management Community: Prospect and Challenges for the coming Decade [6]
- The Access Class in the SIM of an ordinary user is set to a random number between 0 and 9. This number is used for network management. Wireless network management could disable the access of one or more access classes (having the effect of blocking 10% of call origination per 'Access Class').
- The SIM of a WPS user will be provisioned with one or more Access Classes from 12, 13, and 14, depending on the Priority Level of the Service User, in addition to one Access Class from 0-9.
- For QUEUING, when any user dials *272, the MSC (Mobile Switching Centre) verifies that the subscriber is a WPS user and assigns the priority level (1-5) that is stored in the MSC/VLR (Visiting Location Register). During call set-up, if there is no channel available between the BSS (Base Station System) and the MS (Mobile Station), the BSS will put the call into the queue associated with its priority.
The following table lists the priority level provided for each 'Access Class' from 12 to 14. (See original document page 3 for this table)
The following figure illustrates the different call scenarios and segments where priority is given to WPS calls. (See original document page 3 for this figure)
- A subscriber to WPS that dials the *272 activation code will receive priority access to the wireless network at his level of priority. If no radio resources are available, the call will be put in the queue of its priority.
- Within the originating wireless network, the call will have an increased likelihood of call completion with functionalities similar to HPC.
- If the call terminates to a wireless phone within the same network, the call will get priority at termination. If no radio resources are available, the call will be put in the queue of its associated priority.
- If the call needs to access the PSTN, it will be identified as a National/Security Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP) call and will benefit from the HPC feature for increased call completion.
- On the terminating wireless network, the call will have an increased likelihood of call completion with functionalities similar to HPC.
- If the call terminates to a wireless phone on another network, the call will get priority at termination. If no radio resources are available, the call will be put in the queue of the default priority.
- If a GETS call originating from the PSTN needs to terminate on a wireless phone, it will have priority for terminating as described in 5 and 6.
The WPS FOC Industry Requirements (IR) for GSM were completed as of September 2002 and are being implemented by GSM switch manufacturers. The feature should be available on most switches by 2004/2005. As for CDMA, the Industry Requirements were completed in March 2003, and at the time this report was completed, CDMA switch manufacturers were working on plans for implementing the feature on their switches.
2.4 Cost of WPS
For WPS, the United States pays for the infrastructures and enhancements (estimated to be $200 million over 5 years) and user agencies pay for:
- Commercial wireless subscription costs
- Equipment costs (e.g. handsets, charger units, etc.)
- One time WPS activation cost of $10
- Monthly WPS service feature cost of $4.50
- When WPS is invoked by dialing *272, a 75Â per minute usage fee (WPS minutes are not charged against the basic service)
- Repair/maintenance/replacement costs of existing NCS-furnished handsets (if applicable)
- WPS charges are in addition to commercial plans and other feature, toll, and special service charges.
2.5 Legal implication of WPS
The US Federal Communication Commission (FCC) ruled in 2000 (WT Docket No. 9686) that providing priority access to radio channels for emergency workers is allowable and the FCC adopted the following specific implementation rules:
- Wireless Carriers have permission but are not required to offer WPS
- Priority calls will not pre-empt calls in progress
- WPS providers will have to adhere to a uniform operating protocol concerning the number of priority levels and the priority level of particular NSEP users
- There will be 5 priority levels
- Access to WPS will be limited to key personnel and those with leadership responsibilities
- NCS will be responsible for the day-to-day administration of WPS
- WPS providers will not have to adhere to a particuliar technical standard to implement WPS.
- It is prima facie lawful to provide the WPS service (imposing a heavy burden on any complainant who claims violation of the Communication Act, in particular, a violation of section 202'™s anti-discrimination provisions)
2.6 Status
Carrier participation in the WPS program is voluntary under the FCC Report and Order. To encourage participation the NCS funds the technical development and implementation of priority features in the carrier networks. Although the FCC maintains oversight responsibilities for the WPS Program, the NCS manages the day-to-day administration on behalf of the Executive Office of the President.
In March 2003, T-Mobile was the only GSM carrier offering WPS but NCS intends to expand WPS to include additional GSM carriers (AT&T Wireless, Cingular, and Nextel) at a later date. The NCS will begin the development of a code division multiple access (CDMA) technology capability for carriers such as Sprint PCS and Verizon Wireless, beginning in 2004.
3 CANADIAN WPS
3.1 Canadian wireless network
This section presents an overview of the wireless market in Canada and is aimed at giving the reader an understanding of the possibilities for a domestic WPS.
Detailed information was gathered directly from carriers and switch manufacturers, however, because this report is public and because of the highly competitive wireless market, no detailed information has been provided.
There are four nationwide wireless service providers: Microcell, Rogers AT&T, TELUS and Bell Wireless Alliance (BWA), which is an alliance of Aliant Telecom, Bell Mobility, MTS communication, and Saskatchewan Telecommunication.
Microcell and Rogers AT&T are using GSM technology and TELUS and BWA are using CDMA technology 5
For GSM, the technology is provided by Nortel and Ericsson and for CDMA, the technology is provided by Lucent and Nortel 6.
Rogers AT&T, BWA and TELUS offer similar coverage (more than 90% of the Canadian population)7 and share 28%, 37% and 25% of the wireless market respectively 8. As for Microcell, they have less coverage 9 and have a little less than 10% of the market.
The following table summarizes the information Vendors (See original document for table)Please note that the wireless industry is evolving very rapidly and the information given in this section is only a snapshot 10 applicable to 2002.
3.2 Current Canadian wireless priority service
According to the OCIPEP report [6] , two wireless service providers have implemented methods for providing priority access; TELUS Mobility and Rogers AT&T.
- 5
Some of these carriers offer other technologies like AMPS and TDMA but because WPS is only available on GSM and CDMA, it was decided for simplicity to focus on these technologies.
6 Per carrier information is not given because of non-disclosure agreements.
7 BWA and TELUS offer nationwide coverage through a 10 year reselling agreement (starting in 2002).
8 Market information is for year 2002 and was taken from CWTA.
9 Specific coverage is not given because of non-disclosure agreements. This report was completed March 31st 2003.
10 years ago, TELUS deployed a basic Wireless Priority Service. The service is essentially an equivalent of Line Load Control on wireless. When network managers activate the feature, all calls from ‘normal subscribers’ are blocked and calls from ‘priority subscribers’ are processed as normally. TELUS has nationwide coverage but this service is only available in BC. As for Rogers AT&T, it appears that there was an effort to provide a competing service in BC, but it used a priority scheme that involved programming the handset. Rogers AT&T reported working on a scheme similar to that developed by TELUS, but its status and availability is uncertain.
3.3 Future Canadian wireless priority service
Many options are possible for the implementation of a wireless priority service for Canadian emergency workers and this section lists and comments on factors that should be considered.
3.3.1 Functionality
There are currently three levels of priority service for wireless phones. The first level of service is the one already provided by TELUS (please refer to section 3.2). Its usefulness is limited because it requires manual activation and it is an “all or nothing†solution. This service is currently available only on certain wireless switches and to offer the service nationwide would require the development of a new feature by some switch vendors. This is an extremely expensive process and with its limited functionality certainly does not justify the effort.
The second level is the functionality provided by the WPS IOC (please refer to 2.2). As with the first level, it is limited to priority access but is significantly improved by allowing multiple priorities of users and has the capability of queuing calls. It is activated continuously and does not prevent non-emergency users from originating calls if there are available channels. It is currently available on the latest GSM software releases but, at the time of this report, no Canadian carriers were running it. The cost of WPS IOC for one carrier has been approximated at $2 million 11.
It is unknown if WPS IOC functionality will ever be offered on CDMA because switch manufacturers might skip this step and offer only WPS FOC.
Finally, the last level is the functionality provided by WPS FOC (please refer to 2.3) and this gives priority treatment to all segments of a wireless call. As mention earlier, the complete functionality requires HPC in the PSTN, which has been estimated to cost $20 million [5] . The wireless feature will be available in 2004/2005 and the right-to-use cost and activation cost of WPS FOC for one carrier has been estimated at $4 million.
11 No carriers or vendors were in a position to provide cost quotations so this ballpark figure was provided in order to give an order of magnitude.
3.3.2 Single or Multiple carrier
One important factor to take into account is whether the service would be offered by one or more carriers. In other words, is it acceptable to have only one carrier offering WPS to Canadians or must all wireless carriers be allowed to participate?
There are disadvantages to a single carrier solution. First, a single carrier solution would require that all emergency personnel in a disaster area would have to have a wireless phone from the single WPS provider. Second, the priority service would not be end-to-end if the terminating device is a wireless phone from another carrier. Finally, a single carrier solution will make the service dependant on a single network with no redundancy available.
Obviously, the main advantage of a single carrier solution is the cost savings. As noted in
previous sections, IOC for one carrier has been estimated at $2,000,000 and $8,000,000
would be required for all four carriers. For FOC, $4,000,000 would be needed for one carrier
and $16,000,000 for all four carriers plus the $20,000,000 that is necessary to activate HPC in
the Canadian Public Switched Telephone Network. The following table shows
approximations for the different options:
(see original document for table)
If a single carrier solution is chosen, the coverage of that carrier is critical because it limits where the service can be used and for a service like WPS, high coverage is an important factor.
For Rogers AT&T and Microcell, coverage is achieved with their equipment only and the activation of WPS involves working with a single company. In the case of BWA and TELUS the coverage of both is increased with a reselling agreement between them. This adds complexity because, for example, to have WPS on the TELUS network where service is provided by BWA under the reselling agreement would also require WPS functionality on the BWA switches.
Obviously, the best option is to have all carriers offering the service. This would enable emergency organizations to have WPS phones from all four carriers (which is good for reasons of redundancy) and would ensure egress priority (priority to terminate to a wireless phone).
3.3.3 Leaving it to the carrier
The US approach of leaving it to the carriers to offer the service is recommended. Therefore, incentives will be needed to encourage wireless carriers to participate. There are two possible incentives: money and marketing (or public image) and probably a combination of both.
On the money side, a carrier could charge the user for the service. For wireless service, the CRTC does not request any tariff filing so various possibilities can be imagined: an activation fee, a pay per use fee, a monthly fee, a charge per minute fee, or some combination.
For the pay per use and/or pay per minute, one can argue that this service will be rarely used; however, users will likely be required to make regular test calls to ensure that the service is working properly and, so users understand the protocol and how to use it.
On the marketing or the corporate public image side, it is clear that the importance of supporting emergency response and saving lives is recognized by the Canadian population.
Offering WPS could provide a competitive advantage for a wireless service provider because it almost guarantees that all the emergency worker communities will want phones from that provider and, because the phone doesn’t have to be dedicated for emergency purposes it can also be used as a normal phone; it could therefore replace an existing wireless phone from another carrier.
Alternatively, if priority is given to specific persons during an emergency, other citizens will have less chance of completing calls in such situations and this may therefore influence users to obtain service from other non-WPS providers.
Note that the WPS technology for GSM is at least one year ahead of CDMA and, if CDMA carriers are interested in offering a WPS service, they may be concerned with the competitive edge that WPS would provide to GSM carriers.
Further analysis is required to estimate the number of people that would want a WPS service and to determine how much users would be willing to pay. The result of this analysis would certainly be useful for wireless carriers in determining their interest in providing a WPS.
3.3.4 Legal
Unlike the United States, there are no legal obstacles foreseen in providing a WPS to
emergency workers in Canada. The following paragraph is from section 27 of the
Telecommunication Act:
-
(2) No Canadian carrier shall, in relation to the provision of a telecommunications service or the charging of a rate for it, unjustly discriminate or give an undue or unreasonable preference toward any person, including itself, or subject any person to an undue or unreasonable disadvantage.
In the Canadian market, providing specific wireless service to only emergency personnel will most probably not be considered undue or unreasonable.
3.3.5 Activities to activate WPS
To deploy any service, carriers usually perform four high level tasks that require money and effort:
- 1- Buy Right-To-Use (RTU) from vendors
2- Test and validate the software
3- Activate and deploy the service
4- Maintain and provision the service
Buy RTU
This is the money given to switch manufacturers to have the right to use the software. In the usual model, carriers pay the right-to-use fee per switch directly to vendors but for a nationwide service, there might be some cost savings if the Canadian government buys a nationwide RTU directly from vendors.
Test and validation
Carriers usually perform various levels of testing and validation before activating a new feature in their network. The level of testing varies depending on the feature and on the carrier. Because WPS is used in overload situations, it is a critical feature, and WPS FOC has interaction with the PSTN, the testing of WPS might require more effort than other features.
Activation and deployment
These are the steps needed to activate the feature in a carriers’ network. Depending on the feature, it might be as simple as turning the feature ‘ON’, but it might require the addition of new hardware, the modification of data in each switch (provisioning), on databases (HLR or Home Location Register), etc†Preliminary information from vendors confirmed that the effort/cost of activating WPS should be relatively small.
Maintenance and provisioning
These are the operations performed regularly to maintain the service up and running, to add and remove subscribers and to gather statistics about the usage of the service. For WPS, the addition and removal of WPS subscribers requires some effort by carriers and, optionally, data gathering after each emergency situation would be useful to evaluate the performance of the service and to recommend service improvements if needed.
As mention in section 2, the United States is paying for the infrastructure (probably tasks 1, 2 and 3) and carriers are responsible for task 4 in exchange for the following fees charged directly to WPS users:
It is understood that the Canadian government would be less involved in an ongoing program and, as opposed to NCS, would not be solely responsible of the service. For a Canadian WPS, it is recommended keeping the current model where Industry Canada serves as a central point but provinces, federal agencies and carriers cooperate and together are ultimately responsible for the service. Using such a model, it is suggested that the Canadian government pay all or a portion of the RTU cost and allow wireless carriers to deal with tasks 2, 3 and 4 in exchange for user service fees.
3.3.6 Canadian WPS with US WPS interaction
Assuming WPS FOC is deployed in Canada, this section describes the interaction between WPS in Canada and WPS in the US.
Access Priority
To get priority access to the wireless network, the originating wireless phone has to be registered with the originating carriers. That means that phones served by Canadian WPS carriers will not benefit from priority access in the US and vice-versa.
Network Priority
To get the HPC feature automatically (without dialing the Canadian Emergency Telecommunication (CETS) number 12 or the GETS number), the wireless phone has to be registered with the originating carriers. That means that, on a foreign call 13, the HPC feature will be activated only if the CETS or GETS number is dialed.
Egress Priority
To get priority call completion on terminating wireless phones, the terminating carrier has to be a WPS provider and the call has to be flagged as an HPC call. That means that a foreign user can benefit from egress priority when calling any user (local or foreign).
3.3.7 User management
User management may require significant effort and this section makes suggestions as to how a WPS subscription could be integrated with the current Web based emergency management system.
Based on a detailed needs-analysis required to identify the number of WPS subscribers, a fixed number of WPS subscriptions would be assigned to each province/territory and federal agency.14
With the help of an Industry Canada guideline, the responsibility for assigning the service and priority to specific users would be given to the provinces/territories and Industry Canada (for federal agencies). As with any other Canadian Emergency Telecommunication Service, subscription would be done through an IC web site.
The system would perform checks automatically to ensure that limits are not exceeded and that a certain priority ratio is respected. For example, if a province has a 1000 WPS subscriptions, the following table illustrates a proposed distribution: See original document for table)
12 Assuming that a program similar to GETS is deployed in Canada.
13 FOREIGN CALL means a Canadian WPS user dialing from a US network or a US WPS user dialing from a Canadian network.
14 One of the big advantages of WPS over HPC is its multi-level priority that allows a lot more subscribers without jeopardizing the quality of service of higher priority personnel.
After service requests are validated, Industry Canada would forward the request to the wireless carrier(s) 15.
3.3.8 Schedule
While it is too soon to define a precise timeframe a few dates and restrictions are provided in this section to understand the implications.
First, software has to be developed by vendors. Second, when the software is available, it must be available on every switch of the carrier’s network. This requires a software upgrade, which is expensive and requires a lot of non-WPS related activity. It is preferable to allow carriers to upgrade their switches for their own commercial reasons and negotiate with them the usage of WPS functionality at that time. If this is being done, the availability of the WPS feature will depend on each carrier’s network evolution plan.
Knowing that the wireless market is evolving rapidly and is very competitive, carriers
will most likely upgrade frequently to benefit from features present in any new software
release. We estimate that a wireless feature should be present on a carrier’s network, at the
maximum, two years after vendors have developed it. The following timetable summarizes
the approximate WPS availability in the Canadian network
16 :
(See original document for table)
15 Note that it would be important to establish Rapid Subscription Procedures with the carriers in case there is a sudden need.
16 Please note that these are extremely rough estimates and that the availability of WPS on Canadian networks depends on many factors.
4 CONCLUSION
Many provincial and federal agencies already have various private systems that offer a means of communication during emergencies and the emergency communication services built on commercial infrastructure (PAD, HPC, and WPS) should not replace them. They are complimentary services that allow all emergency personnel (including non-government personnel) to reach anyone at anytime using existing infrastructure.
As the result of a preliminary needs-analysis study that was done for HPC [5] , it is clear that Canadian emergency workers would benefit from a wireless priority service and that the functionality offered by a WPS FOC meets all the fundamental emergency preparedness requirements: Portability, Simplicity, Transparency, End-to-end increased call completion and User level priority. The remaining high-level questions are:
In order to determine if WPS is viable in the Canadian market, a detailed needs-analysis will be required to further assess the interest of users, carriers and the Canadian government.
5 ANNEX
5.1 Acronyms and Abbreviations
- CDMA: Code Division Multiple Access
- CMRS: Commercial Mobile Radio System (Cellular, PCS, SMR, Paging, Satellite and air to ground)
- CRTC: Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
- CTEPA: Canadian Telecommunication Emergency Preparedness Association
- DETO: District Emergency Telecommunication Officer
- EMO: Emergency Measure Organization
- ETS: Emergency Telecommunication Service
- FOC: Final Operating Capability
- GETS: Government Emergency Telecommunication System
- GSM: Global System for Mobile communication
- HPC: High Probability of Completion
- IAM: Initial Address Message (ISUP message for call set-up)
- IC: Industry Canada
- IEPREP: Internet Emergency Preparedness
- IEPS: International Emergency Preference Scheme
- IETF: Internet Engineering Task Force
- IOC: Initial Operating Capability
- IR: Industry Requirements
- ISDN: Integrated Services Digital Network
- ISUP: ISDN User Part of SS7
- ITU: International Telecommunication Union
- ITS: Institute for Telecommunication Science
- LLC: Line Load Control
- MPLS: Multiprotocol Label Switching
- NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
- NCS: National Communication System
- NS/EP National Security and Emergency Preparedness
- NS/EPC: National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications
- NIIF: Network Interconnection Interoperability Forum
- OCIPEP: Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness
- PAD: Priority Access Dialling
- PCS: Personal Communications Services
- PLMN: Public Land Mobile Network
- POTS: Plain Old Telephone Service
- PNOC: Provincial Network Operations Center
- PSTN: Public Switched Telephone Network
- RETO: Regional Emergency Telecommunication Officer
- SMR: Specialized Mobile Radio
- TIA: Telecom Industry Association
- WPS: Wireless Priority Service
5.2 References
- [1] Description of an international emergency preference scheme (IEPS) [ E106 ]
- [2] High Probability of Completion Network Capability [ GR-2931 ]
- [3] Wireless Priority Service (WPS) Industry Requirements for the Full Operating Capability (FOC) for GSM-Based Systems
- [4] Wireless Priority Service: Providing priority access to radio channels for emergency workers - David Crowe
- [5] Canadian High Probability of Completion – Feasibility Study – André LeBon
5.3 Internet links
- [6] OCIPEP Commercial Mobile Telephone Services and the Canadian Emergency Management Community: Prospect and Challenges for the coming Decade -
- [7] >Crisis calls get wireless right of way -
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-981441.html - [8]
GETS
http://gets.ncs.gov/ - [9]
FCC PAS DOCUMENT
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Wireless/Orders/2000/fcc00242.txt - [10]
Telecom Service in Canada
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/sf05637e.html - [11]
Personal Communications Services
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/sf02092e.html - [12]
IC PAD Program
http://spectrum.ic.gc.ca/urgent/english/pad.html - [13]
CTIA
http://www.wow-com.com - [14]
CWTA
http://www.cwta.ca/cwta_guide/index.php3 - [15]
Cell Phone Resource Site
http://www.geckobeach.com/cellular/ - [16]
IMT-2000
http://www.imt-2000.org/portal/index.asp - [17]
LLC Article
http://yarchive.net/phone/line_load_control.html - [18]
How Cell Phones Work
http://www.howstuffworks.com/cell-phone1.htm - [19]
IEPS
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/cisc/COMMITTE/N-docs/NTCO215.do- [20] Telecom Act
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/sf01180e.html- [21] Globalstar Canada -
http://www.globalstar.ca/english/- [22] MSAT -
http://www.msvlp.com/- [23] Mobility Companies
http://www.telusmobility.com/- http://www.sasktelmobility.com/
- http://www.bellmobility.ca/
- http://www.nmi.ca/
- http://www.mtt.ca/Mobility/
- http://www.nbtel.nb.ca/English/Mobility/
- http://www.nortelmobility.com/
- http://www.shoprogers.com/store/wireless/overview.asp
- http://www.microcell.ca/
- [24] CRTC -
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/- [25] WPS at NCS Contact -
http://63.121.95.245/wps/contact_body.html- [26] GSM Tutorial -
http://www.pt.com/products/gsmintro.html- [27] CDMA -
http://www.wirelessready.org/nettech_cdma.asp- 28] GSM -
http://www.wirelessready.org/nettech_gsm.asp- [29] GPRS -
http://www.wirelessready.org/nettech_gprs.asp- [30] 1RxTT -
http://www.cdg.org/index.asp- [31] WPS
- http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0415/web-wps-04-18-02.asp
- http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2001/1105/web-disa-11-07-01.asp
- http://www.ncs.gov/N2/Wps/WPS1.html
- http://www.disa.mil/pao/press/pr041702.doc
- http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/tpr/2000/its_e/nsep/nsep_require.html <
- http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Wireless/News_Releases/2002/nrwl0206.html
- http://63.121.95.245/wps/
- [20] Telecom Act
http://www.ocipep-bpiepc.gc.ca/research/scie_tech/CI/1999-D005_e.pdf
