Ottawa’s emergency operators dealt with some 27,000 inadvertent 911 calls in 2009, representing 12% of all emergency calls and resulting in many unnecessary police attendances, according to a recent report.

Many of these accidental calls result from cell phones being dialed in callers’ pockets or handbags, which is especially likely to happen when ’911′ is placed on speed dial, and a high percentage of the inadvertent callers immediately hang up.

“The most intuitive reaction when you accidentally call 911 is hang up and hope that nobody realizes that 911 was called,” commented Ottawa police Staff Sgt. Sandra McLaren. “In actual fact, it’s that reaction that will cost us a lot of time.”

When a 911 call is terminated, operators must follow a procedure of calling back and asking the person a series of questions to ensure that there isn’t an emergency. If such calls go unanswered, police are deployed, McLaren explained, noting that the best thing for mistaken 911 callers to do is remain on the line.

“We can get to the bottom of this much more quickly than if the person hangs up,” she explained. “Every minute we can save in a 911 environment is a very precious minute to everybody.”

Telus Mobility customers sent and received 5.4 billion text messages in 2010, up from 2.7 billion the year before.

The exploding popularity of texting was undoubtedly fueled by the growing number of feature-rich smartphones on the market, including many with built-in QWERTY keyboards. As of the third quarter of 2010, more than a quarter (28%) of Telus customers were using smartphones, up from 18% in 2009.

“2010 was really the year where consumers started getting into data in a big way,” said Telus spokesman, Shawn Hall. “It used to be the territory of the business user — you know the black suit BlackBerry, but with the iPhone and really nifty Android and more consumer-oriented BlackBerrys hitting their stride, more and more consumers are picking up smartphones.”

Wind Mobile is celebrating the one-year anniversary of its commercial launch, making it the first of several new Canadian wireless competitors to do so.

Wind initially rolled out services in Toronto and Calgary on December 16, 2009, and launched networks in Edmonton, Ottawa, and Vancouver over the course of 2010. The company had some 140,000 customers as of last month.

“Getting Wind out the gate in the five markets we have launched is obviously amazing and bringing the first real competition in those markets in over a decade has been great,” commented Wind chairman, Anthony Lacavera. “We still have a long way to go, we still have a lot of work to do but we’ve made a lot of progress.”

In the year ahead, Wind plans to start going after the business telecom market.

“For 2011, we will be rolling out to small and medium-sized businesses,” Lacavera said. “We’re going to be offering a wireless bundle, which includes of course the Internet and all of the hosting services — their office Internet and their office phone services — in addition to mobile.”

This will be made possible through a partnership with OneConnect, which provides IP and telecommunications services to small and medium-sized business and is owned by Wind’s parent company, Globalive.

Rogers will seek to make 3G-enabled ‘tablet’ devices more appealing to smartphone owners, by allowing users to share a single data plan between tablets and phones.

Rogers plans to begin selling Research In Motion’s much-anticipated PlayBook device, a 7-inch touchscreen tablet, among other tablets, in the first quarter of 2011. Although the first incarnation of the PlayBook will come with Wi-Fi only (i.e. no 3G chip), future versions are expected to have mobile broadband connectivity built in.

“We’ll start with the Wi-Fi and add the 3G when it’s available,” commented Rogers’ Chief Marketing Officer, John Boynton, adding that when that day comes, customers will be able to connect to the internet on smartphones and tablet devices, using a single data plan for both.

Canada’s telecom regulator, the CRTC, has issued a ruling requiring all Canadian carriers to participate in the Commission for Complaints for Telecommunications Services.

The Commission was created three years ago to provide customers with an independent mechanism for filing compalints regarding telecom service delivery, billing, and contract issues.

Consumers filed some 3,700 complaints in the Commission’s 2009-2010 monitoring period. 52% of these complaints related to wireless carriers. The majority of consumers who complained were upset over billing errors, contract disputes, and so called “number portability,” which (in theory) allows users to switch carriers while keeping the same phone number.

Making CCTS membership mandatory “recognizes the need for certainty for both the
CCTS and consumers about the status of the CCTS during this holiday season and beyond,” the CRTC noted in its ruling.