emergency services accessible for people with disabilities – standards update gunnar hellström...

Emergency Services accessible for people with disabilities

– standards update

Gunnar Hellström

Omnitor

Member of EENA Advisoury Board

EWG5 Wien October 2008

Emergency Services todayThe problem: In many countries, people with communication oriented

disabilities, have no guaranteed access to emergency services because it does not support their way to communicate

With aging of the population this problem becomes more prevalent.

In emergency situation anybody can find themselves disabled and unable to use voice fully to perform an emergency call.

The current move to IP is an excellent once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get rid of the problem, and make emergency services accessible for all.

All mainstream providers need to bother about this need NOW.

Total Conversation is the solution:

Total Conversation (TC) is a:

- IP based telecommunications service

- enabling voice, text and video communication

at the same time and in real time.

• s

Demonstration of Total Conversation:

Brief trial with multimedia calls to emergency services for access by

people with disabilities

• Performed in Sweden, October 2007

• Conclusion: video, real-time text and voice = Total Conversation in emergency calls increase confidence and efficiency.

• Including relay services in three party multimedia calls increase confidence and efficiency.

Total conversation architecture

Real-time text in other protocol

platforms

3G Circuit switched

video telephony

IMS withMultimedia Telephony

with SIP and RFC 4103

IP-network with SIP, voice, RFC 4103 for real-time text, and

optional video Web-based text

telephony,

SIP-basedtext and video relay service

Text telephony in

PSTNA

SIP-based 911/ 112

=Terminal using default IP-based protocol: SIP with voice, RFC 4103 for real-time text and optionally H.263/264 for video

=Service using default IP-based protocol

911 / 112

in PSTN

PSTN based text relay service

Main architecture of Accessible IP-based text- and total conversation

=Protocol conversion

Text telephony in PSTN

B

Text trunking over IP may be done with TIA 1001, ITU-T .151, V.152 or RFC 4103

Video support in ESVideo relay servicetranslatingsign language<>voice

Signing user

Example of a trial (1): multimedia calls to emergency services

PSAP

Example of a trial (2): multimedia calls to emergency services

Text (Relay) service in ES

Text user, orText + voice user

PSAP working with voice seeing text

text <>voice

Speech-to-speech service

• Speech-to-speech services support users with various speech- and cognitive disabilities

• 3-party call

• Essentials to bring into emergency calls with its users

3-party

Speech-to-speech user

Speech-to-speech service

PSAP

Example of a trial (3):

Trial conclusions

• Reliability and efficiency is created by including multimedia and relay services in emergency calls

• Direct participation between PSAP and user is of great value. This can be achieved with a three-party multimedia call.

• Rapid connection to PSAP is essential, relay service included from the beginning is essential.

• Convenient connection mechanisms are needed for this connection case, maintaining the ambition that all shall use the regional emergency number 112, 911 etc.

Next steps• Trial deployment project in Europe – eInclusion

- Involving four contries and their ES starting in fall 2008

• Approval of emergency service standards in IETF

• Equal opportunities for all in personal communication and emergency service access

Gunnar Hellström

gunnar.hellstrom@omnitor.se

www.omnitor.se

www.eena.org