New services covered in the specification include ‘multimedia’ emergency communication, including voice, photos, video, and text. According to the organisation, the specification has been developed by its EMTEL technical committee.
Discussing the need for specification, a spokesperson for the organisation said: “Depending on different countries, there may be one or more emergency control centre[s], or public safety answering point[s]. In case where there are several control centres, [these] are networked via packet switched infrastructure or - in standard terms - an emergency services IP network [ESInet]. This will help to improve decision-making and response times during emergencies.”
The spokesperson continued: “This revision also provides a technical basis for national packet switched infrastructure, giving access to emergency services communications to all citizens. It includes the requirement to support ‘total conversation' [ie, voice, video and real-time text, combined in a single conversation], and ‘real-time text’ which can, for instance, help hearing-impaired people.”
Specification rapporteur, Wolfgang Kampichler, said: “This recent publication is an essential foundation for European standardisation of emergency communication. It addresses the technical challenges of multimedia conversations coming from different networks, and is thus an important contribution to offer access to emergency services for all.”
Another key technical addition in TS 103 479 includes a mechanism to update location data directly from the terminal, even during an 'active' emergency communication. According to ETSI, this allows for routing to the correct emergency control centre based on the location information, as well as making it possible to “manage roaming situations.”
