Advanced Mobile Location (or AML) is a free-of-charge

emergency An emergency is an urgent, unexpected, and usually dangerous situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment and requires immediate action. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening ...

location-based service A location-based service (LBS) is a general term denoting software services which use geographic data and information to provide services or information to users. LBS can be used in a variety of contexts, such as health, indoor object search, en ...

(LBS) available on

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

s that, when a caller dials the local (in country) short dial

emergency telephone number Most public switched telephone networks have a single emergency telephone number (sometimes known as the universal emergency telephone number or the emergency services number) that allows a caller to contact local emergency services for assis ...

, sends the best available

geolocation Geopositioning, also known as geotracking, geolocalization, geolocating, geolocation, or geoposition fixing, is the process of determining or estimating the geographic position of an object. Geopositioning yields a set of geographic coordinates ...

of the caller to a dedicated end-point, usually a

Public Safety Answering Point A public-safety answering point (PSAP), sometimes called public-safety access point, is a call center where emergency/non-emergency calls (like police, fire brigade, ambulance) initiated by any mobile or landline subscriber are terminated. It can ...

, making the location of the caller available to emergency call takers in real-time. AML improves the time taken by emergency call takers to verify the location of callers and can improve the time taken to dispatch an emergency response. AML is a protocol to transport data with SMS and/or HTTPS from the phone to the emergency call centre in all countries that have deployed AML; it is not an app and does not require any action from the caller. AML is supported in many countries, and by all smartphones running recent versions of Android or iOS, although it can be disabled in user settings. AML was standardised by the

European Telecommunications Standards Institute The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is an independent, not-for-profit, standardization organization in the field of information and communications. ETSI supports the development and testing of global technical standard ...

(ETSI) Emergency Telecommunications Subcommittee (EMTE

in 2019 as Technical Specifications.

History

AML was developed in the United Kingdom in 2014 by British Telecom, EE Limited, and

HTC HTC Corporation ( zh, t=宏達國際電子股份有限公司, s=宏达国际电子股份有限公司, p=Hóngdá Guójì Diànzǐ Gǔfèn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī, first=t) or High Tech Computer Corporation, (literally ''Hongda International Electron ...

as a solution to problematic caller location in

emergencies An emergency is an urgent, unexpected, and usually dangerous situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment and requires immediate action. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening ...

. When a person in distress calls the emergency services with a smartphone where AML is enabled, the telephone automatically activates its location service to establish its position and sends this information to the emergency services via an

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

. The services uses either a

global navigation satellite system A satellite navigation or satnav system is a system that uses satellites to provide autonomous geo-spatial positioning. It allows satellite navigation devices to determine their location (longitude, latitude, and altitude/elevation) to high pr ...

WiFi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wa ...

depending on which one is better at the given moment. It was estimated that this technique is up to 4000 times more accurate than the previously used system.

Mobile phone support

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

announced in July 2016 that all Android phones running version 2.3.7, Gingerbread (released in December 2010) or later include AML. Google calls their implementation ''Emergency Location Service'' (ELS); this needs to be enabled in phone settings. Apple devices running

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

11.3 (released in March 2018) or later also support AML. From March 2022 all smartphones sold in the EU Single Market must be equipped with AML, following a delegated regulation supplementing the Radio Equipment Directive.

Geographical availability

AML was deployed in: The European Electronic Communications Code mandates that all EU states were required to implement AML by December 2020. AML also works when using emergency SMS service on Android phones in some countries.

Functionality

AML automatically turns on

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...

and location services on the handset, collects and computes location data, then sends an SMS to the emergency services containing the caller's location, before turning location services and Wi-Fi off again. The service can also send the data via an

HTTPS Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It is used for secure communication over a computer network, and is widely used on the Internet. In HTTPS, the communication protocol is enc ...

POST request to the specified endpoint. The country implementing AML decides whether to use an SMS endpoint or an HTTPS endpoint or both. Integrating AML with emergency services'

computer-aided dispatch Computer-aided dispatch (CAD), also called computer-assisted dispatch, is a method of dispatching taxicabs, couriers, field service technicians, mass transit vehicles or emergency services assisted by computer. It can either be used to send messag ...

(CAD) systems is problematic.{{Cite web , title=What3words: 'Life-saving app' divides opinion , last=Wakefield , first=Jane , work=BBC News , date=21 September 2019 , url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49754820

References

BT Group HTC Corporation Wireless locating Emergency communication