Mobile operators must provide location info for 000 calls

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 30 January 2011 15:12

IT Policy - Regulation

The ACMA has issued new rules that require mobile carriers to provide emergency service organisations with the most precise mobile phone location information available when a mobile phone is used to call 000.

However the requirement is only for them to provide this information manually. The ACMA says it is "continuing to explore with industry and emergency services organisations the potential for automatic provision of enhanced mobile location with every emergency call."

ACMA acting chairman, Richard Bean, said the new rule would mean that emergency services would automatically gain the benefits from any future developments in location-based services offered by the mobile carriers.

According to the ACMA, mobile phones now account for around 63 percent of calls made to triple zero, but technology-based location of the caller is required in less than one percent of these. "There are times - estimated at less than one percent of calls - when people are too distressed or unfamiliar with their environment to report their location," ACMA says.

The new rules require mobile carriers to: provide the most precise location information they have available on request from an emergency service organisation; to resolve emergency call location queries with the highest possible priority; to ensure emergency service organisations are provided with a designated contact point and telephone number for location queries, or have a dedicated process for location queries; to assist an emergency service organisation to identify the relevant mobile network carrying the emergency call.

The rules are set out in the Telecommunications (Emergency Call Service) Amendment Determination 2011 (No. 1) that will commence on 20 April 2011. This timetable, the ACMA says, will allow carriers time to trial their systems before making the enhanced capability available to all emergency service organisations.

The new rules were made after consultation with mobile carriers, the Emergency Call Person (Telstra) and emergency services organisations. The ACMA says: "They have the support of all groups as an important step in improving the delivery of mobile location information to enhance the emergency call service."