Kranj, November 20, 2020 – With the use of 4G and 5G mobile networks and the announced abandonment of 2G and 3G technology by telecommunications operators, the next generation e-Call is coming. An important step towards its validation represents a successful 3 weeks long international testing event organized under the frameworks of EU co-funded project sAFE and NG eCall Plugtests Event 2020, steered by ETSI. The testing infrastructure was provided by Slovenian partners in sAFE project, namely interoperability test lab Sintesio as a host and Iskratel as a technical partner.
Iskratel also participated as an active participant in the digital event held under the auspices of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) by performing interoperability tests between its NG eCall Node system and between the in-vehicle system (NG IVS) provided by foreign providers.
The successful 3-weeks event represents an important step in the implementation of the validation of the next generation e-Call conducted in Slovenia, within the European sAFE project. As part of the latter, the partners defined the architectural concept for the next generation e-Call, taking into consideration both, the 3GPP and ETSI standards defining 112 next-generation emergency call on the basis of 3GPP/IMS architecture and Emergency Services Infrastructure Network (ESINet) architecture defined by EENA. Sintesio as the host and Iskratel as the technical partner provided the virtual test environment based on own virtual IMS core network with the support of emergency services.
“Many tests have been carried out that have shown more vagueness, inconsistencies and errors in implementations. With the right support, we managed to eliminate the problems on an ongoing basis and achieved about 75 % of successfully completed tests. This is also the purpose of such an event,” explained dr. Roman Kužnar, director of the Sintesio, Foundation, added that the successfully implemented event also significantly contributes to the completion of the sAFE project.
NG eCall PLUGTEST 2020 is an excellent foundation for further strategic development of broadband “all-IP” networks with the latest 4G and 5G technologies. As a provider of state-of-the-art technologies, Iskratel enables stakeholders to move from older to newer technologies, which ensures long-term compatibility of technologies and consequently lower investment costs.
About NG ECALL PLUGTESTS 2020
This NG ECALL PLUGTEST 2020 event, held for the first time in digital format, was organized by ETSI and co-financed by the European Commission and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and supported by the European Emergency Number Association (EENA) and the European sAFE project, co-founded by the European Union’s Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) – Transport Sector under grant agreement no. INEA/CEF/TRAN/M2018/179816.
The purpose of the event is to provide e-Call providers of the next generation environment for testing interoperability based on test scenarios defined in ETSI TS 103 683 technical specification. Testing enables the interoperability of the technical solutions provided by multiple vendors, and thus contributed to more successful development, implementation and deployments of the NG eCall solutions in the future.
About the e-Call service
The e-Call service of the next generation will play an important role in saving lives in the event of traffic accidents of various categories of vehicles and upgrades the already introduced e-Call service. From 2018 onwards, it is legally stipulated that all new types of cars and light vans sold in the European Union must have an eCall for an emergency call to 112 installed.
Iskratel and the Sintesio Foundation hosted the eCall Plugtest event in Kranj three years ago. More on this link.