Rodier
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Canadians wait for US on public safety network
Canadian public safety agencies hoping the U.S. budget fight doesn't kill a plan to create a national wireless network for first responders. If the Americans don't set aside spectrum in the 700 MHz block for the network, then Canadian plans to create a mirror service will likely die. "A lot is riding on the U.S. and what they'll do," says Supt. Pascal Rodier of the British Columbia Ambulance Service, co-chair of the committee representing Canadian chiefs of police, fire departments and ambulance services that have banded together to lobby the federal government on a dedicated cellular network. "I don't think anyone's going to commit (here) until we know that the Americans are going to do. We were hoping by now they would have made their decision." The idea of Canadian cellular network has been urged by the federal Public Safety department in addition to emergency agencies. Ottawa is still mulling over its plans for a 700 MHz auction. But telecom carriers here have asked the government wait until the U.S. has decided if it will set aside 700 MHz spectrum in the D-block, as has been urged there for years. Supporters here may not have long to wait. Last week as part of a new jobs plan, President Barack Obama proposed setting aside the D-block for the public safety network, creating an independent agency to run it and giving it US$50 million towards its eventual US$10 billion construction. |
Patricia Rodier, Ph.D., the first scientist to formulate and study the idea that autism can originate long before a child is born, died May 3 at Strong Memorial Hospital. She was 68. An embryologist specializing in the nervous system, Dr. Rodier
