Advanced Mobile Location for Emergency Services

Advanced Mobile Location for Emergency Services is a technology that helps emergency responders quickly locate you in an emergency. This feature uses a combination of cell towers and GPS data to provide a more accurate location.

In the US, Advanced Mobile Location is supported by all major carriers, including AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. This means that regardless of your carrier, you can rely on this feature to help emergency responders find you.

With Advanced Mobile Location, emergency responders can pinpoint your location to within 10-20 meters, which is a significant improvement over traditional cell tower location methods that can be off by several hundred meters. This increased accuracy can be a matter of life and death in emergency situations.

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AML works by sending an SMS to a short number, which is internally received by the end-point.

This process involves two messages from Android and one message from iOS during the duration of the call.

The police receive AML positions directly in their Geographical Information System between 5 and 12 seconds.

The transmission of the AML message is free to the caller.

AML automatically turns on Wi-Fi and location services on the handset, then turns them off again after sending the location data.

It collects and computes location data before sending an SMS to the emergency services containing the caller's location.

AML can also send the data via an HTTPS POST request to the specified endpoint, which is decided by the country implementing the service.

On a similar theme: Mobile Location Protocol

Mobile Phone Support is a crucial aspect of Advanced Mobile Location. Emergency services can receive location information from your phone in a crisis, thanks to this technology.

The accuracy of location information is significantly improved by the use of multiple cell towers and satellite signals. This is especially important in areas with poor coverage or obstructed signals.

Mobile phones with GPS capabilities can provide location information to emergency services, even when the phone's screen is locked or the user is unable to make a call. This feature can be a lifesaver in emergency situations.

Mobile phone manufacturers are working with emergency services to ensure that their devices can provide accurate location information in a timely manner. This collaboration is essential for saving lives and reducing response times.

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To use Emergency Location Service (ELS), your phone's location setting doesn't necessarily need to be turned on. ELS can turn location on for you if it's off, but only for the purpose of making an emergency call or sending an emergency text.

ELS is designed with user privacy in mind, and it only sends an emergency location if you explicitly call or text an emergency number from your device. This means you have control over when and if your location is shared.

If you have Android 10 or later, ELS uses Emergency Location Bypass, which allows your device's location to be retrieved in an emergency, even if location settings are turned off. This feature is a game-changer for those who might not have location services enabled.

ELS is turned on by default, but you can easily turn it off or back on at any time if you need to.

Broaden your view: Location Awareness

ELS is Google's implementation of AML, a protocol that enables smartphones to automatically send location data to Emergency Call Centers (ECCs) via SMS.

AML was developed to establish a smartphone's position and send this information to ECCs via an SMS, making it a crucial tool in emergency situations.

ELS location data can be reported using Data SMS or HTTPS, providing flexibility in how it's shared.

In essence, ELS is a specific implementation of AML, designed to work seamlessly with Google's technology.

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Caller location is one of the most important contextual data that is provided automatically to emergency services when an emergency communication is initiated by a citizen.

To intervene successfully, emergency services need to know exactly where the incident happens. Member states have to ensure that caller location is available to the national public safety answering points in line with the European Electronic Communications Code.

An emergency communication initiated from a smartphone uses the position of the caller's handset, which makes use of Galileo data, to establish the caller's location and send it to emergency services.

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Thanks to Galileo, an EU citizen calling the emergency number from a smartphone will be located with improved location accuracy, making rescue efforts more efficient.

The Delegated Regulation 2019/320 requires smartphone manufacturers to support technical solutions for the reception and processing of Wi-Fi data, and data from Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) compatible and interoperable with at least the Galileo system.

This means that all new smartphones sold in the EU internal market will need to be Galileo-enabled, starting from March 2022.

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ELS can be up to 3000x more accurate than cell tower triangulation.

This level of precision is a significant improvement over existing methods, which can struggle to provide accurate locations. In the UK, a live test found that public safety providers were only able to accurately target within a 3 kilometer radius using existing cell-based location information.

Using ELS, more than half of those same public safety providers were able to report locations within >20m accuracy. This level of accuracy can be a game-changer in emergency situations, where every second counts.

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