What happens if you call for the police, an ambulance, or the fire service, but the call is not connected? The European Emergency Number Association (EENA) recently warned that the deactivation of 2G and 3G networks may leave many people unable to call for emergency services.

There have been real-life cases of people not being able to call for help as a result of the transition from 2G/3G networks to 4G/5G networks. One of the services provided by our team at BluGem addresses this specific concern. We work with telcos to test that emergency calls are always connected and available for both domestic and roaming networks, or if a SIM contract has expired.

The penalties for failing to connect emergency calls can be severe, as is the impact on a telco's reputation. This is balanced against the complexity of providing 100% guarantees that calls will be connected, no matter what generation of mobile networks is being used, and irrespective of whether handsets are running old or new operating systems. The desire to simplify is part of the motivation for switching off 2G and 3G networks but the migration of customers to 4G and 5G needs to be supported by rigorous testing.

Our systematic and affordable test programs will test your Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) to verify connectivity to call emergency numbers and other regulated helplines. This includes verifying the caller location information is correct, network fallback paths function correctly, and there is no charge for the emergency call. Find out more from our webpage about emergency services testing or drop us a line.