Avaya, which has made improving citizens’ access to emergency services a focus area for the business communications company since its inception, successfully trialled the solution at an event organized by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the European Emergency Number Association (EENA), the body dedicated to raising awareness of the 112 European emergency number.
The event, in Sophia-Antipolis, France, was the first-ever emergency communications interoperability plugtest in Europe, designed to independently trial all components of the 112 communications chain based on next-generation 112 (NG112) networks. The Avaya team was able to successfully transmit emergency calls embedded with the caller’s location information over the test network.
The demonstration was based on Avaya’s IP Office solution and Avaya Breeze snap-ins, software modules designed to make it easier to develop today’s mobile, customer-facing and cloud migration applications. The technology worked seamlessly and delivered the caller’s location to a partner’s public access service point (PSAP) softclient.
Avaya worked with its DevConnect partner Engelbart Software GmbH to develop the customised software and snap-ins that were used in this plugtest. Engineers from Engelbart also supported Avaya onsite during the test in Sophia Antipolis. The two companies will continue to work together to create further emergency communications software.
Markus Bornheim, Avaya Consulting Sales Engineer for Public Safety and Emergency Services in the EU said,
"Helping to accurately pinpoint the location of an emergency call can save vital time for responders and be the difference between life and death for people in crisis situations. This first European Next Generation 112 interoperability testing has been a vital step in the transformation of the Emergency Services market, helping to deliver an enhanced service to citizens across Europe."