Technical Committee (TC) Emergency Telecommunications (EMTEL) Activity Report 2022

Chair: Cristina Lumbreras, EENA

Responsible for identifying the operational and technical requirements of those involved in the provision of emergency communications, to capture and consolidate requirements from relevant stakeholders and for liaison with other organizations involved in this field.

 

Our Emergency Communications Technical Committee (TC EMTEL) is focused on the access to emergency services through different media, data transmission to public safety answering points, networks and IoT (Internet of Things) devices in the provision of emergency situations and in the context of the European Public Warning System. The scope of its work includes emergency communications between individuals and authorities/organisations; between authorities/organisations; and between individuals.

The main objectives of TC EMTEL are:

  • to capture and consolidate the requirements from the relevant stakeholders,
  • to consider the appropriate scenarios including emergency communications: 
    • of individuals with authorities/organisations,
    • between authorities/organizations,
    • from authorities/organizations to the individuals,
    • amongst individuals,
  • to identify gaps where existing standards do not fulfil the requirements and provide specifications and standards to fill these gaps, without duplication of work in other ETSI committees and partnership projects, or request other ETSI Technical Bodies to provide specifications to fill these gaps,
  • to develop and maintain the Standards and other deliverables to support the development and implementation of emergency communications standardization within ETSI,
  • to provide requirements on issues of network security, network integrity, network behaviour in emergency situations, and emergency telecommunications needs in networks,
  • to coordinate work on emergency communications in ETSI with relevant external groups.

 

Much of the committee’s activity is centred on IP-based emergency communications services, involving communications between IoT devices in emergency situations. This work includes the architecture (known as Next Generation 112 by the community), core elements and technical interfaces for network-independent access to emergency services.

In relation to this topic, during 2022 EMTEL published revisions to a two-part Technical Specification - TS 103 650-1 and TS 103 650-2 – describing the conformance test specifications for core elements for network independent access to emergency services. The committee also published a new Technical Specification TS 103 755 that details the Shared Services between PEMEA and ESInets.

TC EMTEL meanwhile continued its work on Advanced Mobile Location, including an updated version of Technical Specification TS 103 625 on transporting handset location to PSAPs for emergency communications. Work on this topic was concluded with the publication of TS 103 825 describing the test purposes of conformance test specifications.

Public Warning systems have also been an important topic during the year. A revision of TS 102 900 is taking place and will be released in the coming months. 

In 2022 all the committee’s existing Technical Specifications and Technical Reports published since 2006 were reviewed to check if any revisions were needed. This activity resulted in the adoption of several new Work Items to be worked on in 2023.

During the year TC EMTEL has taken part of the discussion with regards to the drafting of a standardization request to the European Standardization Organizations as regards the accessibility requirements of products and services in support of Directive (EU) 2019/882 of the European Parliament and of the Council. M/587 has been accepted by ETSI and EMTEL will be in charge of the creation of the Harmonised Standard for the accessibility and interoperability of emergency communications and for the answering of emergency communications by the public safety answering point (PSAPs) (including to the single European Emergency number 112).

Throughout 2022 the committee has maintained its liaison with organizations outside ETSI, such the Electronic Communications Committee of the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT ECC). It also follows the activities of organizations including the US National Emergency Number Association (NENA), the European Emergency Number Association (EENA), the Telecommunications Standardisation sector of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T), the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and various fora and consortia, including the Internet Engineering Task Force working group on Emergency Context Resolution with Internet Technologies (IETF-ECRIT).

 

See the full list of current TC EMTEL Work Items here.