FREQUENTIS 3020 LifeX: Next Generation Solutions
While citizens use IP-based communications every day, it is significantly harder to reach emergency services with other means than standard voice communications. The same applies to collaboration between the organisations. To remove such difficulties, the EENA (European Emergency Number Association) and the NENA (National Emergency Number Association) are establishing requirements so that emergency services can be accessed via a whole range of IP-communications. The work also aims at making the different control rooms (also referred to as Public Safety Answering Points or PSAPs) more interoperable.
As a result of this, a new standard called “Next Generation (NG) 112 LTD” respectively “NENA i3 NG9-1-1” has been created. This allows both US and European operators of emergency service networks a smooth transition towards IP technology. The infrastructure components together with the PSAPs form a network which is called ESInet (Emergency Services IP Network).
Our products are specifically designed for Next Generation emergency operations which follow these standards. This then allows citizens to reach a public safety agency by calls using VoIP, text messaging, instant messaging, real-time text, pictures and videos. It also provides emergency services with more data such as telematics and health data. Furthermore, the infrastructure provides redundancy and interoperability features, thus enabling routing of emergency calls to the responsible PSAP in scenarios with multiple agencies and/or PSAP systems from different vendors and during migrations. This concept also allows transitional setups involving both NG112/9-1-1 and legacy components.
Active involvement within the standardisation bodies is very important to Frequentis, which is why our associates maintain leadership roles in both the NENA and the EENA. Frequentis is an active participant and lead in NENA Industry Collaboration Events (ICE) which ensures that the standards are not only properly developed but that our own software is interoperable with other vendors that are also developing to the same standards.
3020 LifeX benefits for public safety organisations:
- Serving the public in the best possible way by adapting to their ways of communication
- Future-proof solutions following the latest industry standards
- No impact to the control room itself during later state- or country-wide migrations towards an ESInet
- Minimal integration effort for integrating additional emergency apps
- Allows faster and better decision making due to additional information
- Enables various operational scenarios for balancing the load between different PSAPs
