A new SMS-based system has been developed in the UK by EE, HTC and BT, which can pinpoint the location of 999 (emergency services) calls made using a mobile phone to within 30m. The Advanced Mobile Location system used a smartphone’s GPS to do so.
Around 60% of 999 and 112 calls are made using a mobile phone in the UK each year. Location information is sent to BT’s 999 call centre via a free text (invisible to the caller). The entire process, including validation, takes about 18 seconds. The current tracking system is only valid to within a few square kilometres – AML is around 4,000 times more accurate.
AML is available now on most new HTC phones on the EE network. However, the system has been developed so that the same approach can be adopted by other operators.
