Consider the following scenario: A motor vehicle veers off the road and collides with an obstacle. In such a case, the vehicle's airbags deploy automatically and the in-vehicle system (IVS) also sends an emergency call to an emergency and service PSAP automatically or, if necessary, at the push of a button. Not only is the vehicle's GPS location transmitted, but also its direction of travel, the number of passengers, and various types of sensor data from the vehicle, making it as easy as possible for the police, fire department, and emergency services to determine the exact location of the accident and arrive quickly.
This process is known as eCall. Since 2018, IVS that support eCall have been required by European Union law for motor vehicle manufacturers. However, since the introduction of eCall in 2018, mobile networks have undergone fundamental changes and 3G is already being phased out in other European countries. The Next Generation Emergency Call (NG eCall) therefore ensures that emergency calls from vehicles will continue to be made via 4G/LTE and 5G using VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology in the future. Specifically, from January 1, 2026, all new vehicle types on European roads and all European PSAPs must support NG eCall.
To ensure that all components required for NG eCall – from vehicle and network components to PSAPs – function reliably and interoperably, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in cooperation with the European Emergency Number Association (EENA) conducted “Next Generation eCall Plugtests™ 2025” from June 10 to 13. During this event, which was hosted by Deutsche Telekom in Bonn, more than 100 participants – from car manufacturers and suppliers to emergency call equipment manufacturers and system component providers – were able to carry out interoperability tests between IVS and PSAP systems.
The tests were based on the ETSI TS 103 683 specification for Next Generation eCall High Level Application Protocol (HLAP) Interoperability Testing and were conducted in a real, commercial, and public mobile and fixed network environment provided by Deutsche Telekom. Among other things, scenarios such as a change in the emergency location or direct communication between the PSAP and an IVS at the accident site were tested.
Together with Intersys, we participated in the tests and demonstrated NG112-based routing of NG eCalls. NG112 is a modern, flexible, and future-proof architecture for emergency calls in Europe, based on IP technology and Session Initiation Protocols (SIP) and specified by ETSI. In Switzerland, for example, our customer Swisscom already relies on NG112 for the reliable routing of emergency calls in its network, using CreaLog's Emergency Service Routing Proxy (ESRP) and E-Call Modem as well as Intersys' Location Information Server (LIS).
“The event at Deutsche Telekom sent a positive signal for effective and cooperative collaboration between different manufacturers to improve emergency calls in Germany," said Johannes Beck, Presales and Product Manager at CreaLog.
Further information on our solutions for emergency calls can be found here.
The test report for the “Next Generation eCall Plugtests™ 2025”, published by ETSI, will be available here soon! Stay tuned!
