The European Commission (EC) officially launched the eSafety initiative in April 2002, and the eCall initiative is being undertaken in the framework of this eSafety project. eSafety brings together the EC, industry, public authorities and other stakeholders to accelerate the development, deployment and use of eSafety systems - Intelligent Vehicle Safety Systems - that use information and communication technologies in intelligent solutions, in order to increase road safety and reduce the number of accidents on Europe's roads. Airbiquity stays involved in Europe’s eCall initiative through coordinated participation in industry, regulatory and standards groups. Since the launch of the eCall initiative, Airbiquity has closely followed its developments and is prepared to leverage lessons from our successful commercial deployment to help the EC attain its goals. According to the eCall Memorandum of Understanding, in-vehicle eCall is an emergency call generated either manually by vehicle occupants or automatically via activation of in-vehicle sensors. When activated, the in-vehicle eCall system will establish a voice connection directly with the relevant PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point), this being either a public or a private eCall center operating under the regulation and/or authorization of a public body. At the same time, a minimum set of incident data (MSD) will be sent to the eCall operator receiving the voice call. In July 2003, the EC issued their Universal Directive and Commission Recommendation that caller location information be provided to emergency services when they receive a distress call. The EC requested that the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) proceed with standardization of eCall. ETSI reached a consensus on the eCall requirements in the Mobile Standards Group (MSG) which then asked the 3GPP to proceed with eCall standardization. This standardization work is expected to be completed by March 2007. To help the EC achieve their goals under this demanding timeline, Airbiquity has proposed that our aqLink® in-band modem technology be used for the data delivery from the vehicle to the PSAP. We are working with several levels of the eCall service value chain – from the vehicle manufacturers to the suppliers of PSAP equipment – to help prepare them for eCall deployments in 2009. Airbiquity’s field-proven aqLink in-band modem software is the best choice for eCall and other applications requiring robust and highly-reliable, time-critical data transmission over the largest available coverage area. Because aqLink sends data over the voice channel it provides the highest level of robustness, is the most highly available over existing and future network infrastructure, and offers seamless roaming across regional and national borders. In addition, aqLink provides the highest available reliability thanks to its error correction and retransmission/recovery algorithms. As further validation of our aqLink technology, GSM Europe (GSME) released a position paper in April 2006 entitled GSME Position: Options for eCall MSD Signalling in which they named in-band modem technology as the preferred eCall MSD signaling system. Learn more by reading our white paper, Using Airbiquity’s aqLink In-Band Modem Technology as the Data Transport Solution for Europe’s eCall Initiative. eCall Resources eSafety ERTICO European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT)