911 and Emergency Services

At chatr mobile, we don’t charge a monthly fee for 9-1-1 emergency service and all calls to 9-1-1 are free of charge.

As with regular calls, if you're underground or too far from a network antenna, the quality of your call may be affected or you may not be able to get a connection. In areas where 9-1-1 service is provided by the municipality or province, 9-1-1 calls are answered by local public safety officials. Otherwise, calls to 9-1-1 are automatically routed to a local authority.

• Always provide your name, chatr phone number and location you are calling from.
• Speak clearly. Unlike wireline-based E9-1-1, the emergency operator does not know your actual location until you provide this information.
• Stay on the line for as long as the 9-1-1 operator requires.
• Leave your handset turned on after hanging up in case the 9-1-1 operator needs to call you back.
• Do not program 9-1-1 into your speed dial. This can lead to accidental calls that take up valuable emergency resources.
• Calls to 9-1-1 from your mobile phone are subject to the same limitations as regular mobile calls. If you are underground or too far from a mobile network antenna, the quality of your call may be affected or you may not be able to connect to the network.

Enhanced 9-1-1 (E911) is a computer-aided system that allows operators to respond more quickly and makes it easier to find you in an emergency.

No. Enhanced 9-1-1 calls, like all 9-1-1 calls, are free of charge on your chatr phone.

E911 provides emergency operators with your chatr mobile number to call you back in case the connection is lost. It also locates the area you are in via the network antenna receiving your call. You must still, however, provide your exact location in an emergency.

Phase 1 of E9-1-1 provides the operator with your chatr phone number and the area you are in via the network antenna receiving your call.

Phase Two of E9-1-1 is designed to provide more accurate location information than Phase One. E9-1-1 emergency operators that have the necessary systems deployed will not only receive the caller’s phone number but will also receive geographic co-ordinates associated with the caller’s approximate location. A caller's location will be automatically determined using special technology enabled in the chatr mobile network and will help ensure that all callers get the proper help as quickly as possible.

Any chatr mobile customer registered on the network, using any chatr phone in an area served by E9-1-1, will have access to Phase One and Two. This includes chatr mobile customers in their local area and/or visiting an area in Canada served by E9-1-1.

Enhanced 9-1-1 may not be available in certain areas.

GPS data will not be provided on emergency 9-1-1 calls made using the CAT B15, Doro 626 or Doro 620 after GPS Rollover takes effect.

The way that satellites across the world track time was updated on April 6, 2019, which means that phones and devices using older GPS technology may encounter errors in accurately recording time and navigation. The update is called the GPS Week Number Rollover event. It is a global issue, and not specific to chatr.

This will affect the GPS information on CAT B15, Doro 620 and Doro 626 phones. GPS satellite data won’t be included if you call emergency services using either of these phone models. Instead, cell phone towers will be used to determine your location using a process called triangulation.

Who will be affected by this change?

People who use a CAT B15, Doro 620 or Doro 626 phone will be affected by this change.

If you are using a device that was not purchased at chatr, please contact the manufacturer to learn of any GPS Week Number Rollover impacts.

How will this affect my ability to make 9-1-1 calls?

You can still make 9-1-1 calls. However, your location information will provided by cell phone towers (triangulation), rather than by the GPS in your phone. If you’re inside a building, your location will usually be determined through triangulation.

Whenever you call 9-1-1, it’s important to give emergency services an address, or as much information about your location as you can.

However, do not call 9-1-1 just to test how accurate your location information is. Call 9-1-1 for actual emergencies only.

Will I need to update my phone?

A software update will be provided for the Doro 626 phone to resolve this GPS issue. If you have this phone, we will contact you to assist you with updating it, either by visiting a chatr location or though other means.

No information has been provided yet about updates for the CAT B15 and Doro 620 phone. We will contact customers with updates when there is more information to share from the manufacturers.

The US is implementing a 9-8-8 phone number on July 16, 2022. It’s a nationwide mental health crisis phone number for people to connect with suicide prevention and mental health crisis counsellors. This number is not available in Canada yet, but help is still available.

Reach Canada Suicide Prevention Services (CSPS) at the toll-free number: 1-(833)-456-4566. Help is also available by text message:

• Adults text: 741741
• Youths text: 686868
• Quebec residents text: 1-(855)-957-5353

Alert Ready is a service designed to deliver critical and potentially life-saving emergency alert messages to Canadians.

Beginning on April 6, 2018, all wireless service providers will have the capability to distribute emergency alerts received from alerting authorities directly to consumers’ WPA-compatible wireless devices using Cell Broadcast distribution.There are annual tests that are conducted for this services.

Wireless service providers will only receive and relay messages that are issued for threat-to-life situations.

You cannot opt out of receiving threat-to-life emergency alerts.

As of April 6th, 2019, all devices that are sold by chatr are WPA-compatible. For devices sold before April 6th, 2019, please see the list of compatible devices below.

List of compatible devices:

• Alcatel: Go Flip, Alcatel 1B, Go Flip 3
• Apple: iPhone 5s/SE/6/6+/6s/6s+/7/7+/8/8+/X/XS/XS Max/XR
• BlackBerry: DTEK50, Priv, KEYone, KEY2, KEY2 LE
• Google: Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, Pixel 2XL, Pixel 3, Pixel 3XL
• Huawei: P10, P10 Plus, P10 Lite, P20, P20 Pro, P20 Lite,Mate20 Pro, Nova Plus, GR5
• LG: G5, G6, G7, G7 One, Q6, V20, V30, X Power 2, Q Stylo+
• Motorola: Moto E5 Play, Moto G6 Play, moto g pure
• Nokia: 2.1
• Samsung: S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+, Note 5, S7, S7 Edge, S8, S8+, S9, S9+, S10e, S10, S10+, Note 8, Note 9, A5 (2017), A8, Xcover 4, J3 Prime, J3 2018, A03
• Sonim: XP8, XP5S
• Sony: Xperia X Performance
• ZTE: Z557, Blade A7P, Cymbal 2

For more information, please visit AlertReady.ca. To ensure that your device is enabled, please contact your device manufacturer.