Openwave Joins Major Organisations to Improve European Emergency Service 112

Business Wire, May 28, 2008

European Emergency Number Association (EENA) Announces That Its New Advisory Board Has Been Joined by 30 Major Political, Association and Solution Providers to Improve the European Emergency Service 112

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- On the 3rd of June, 2008, at the occasion of the joint European Parliament/European Commission media event on 112 and the 112 Awards Ceremony, the European Emergency Number Association (EENA) will announce the formation of a new Advisory Board that will reinforce the advocacy organisation's leading role as the "Voice of 112" in the European Union.

Openwave is one of more than 30 major political, association, and industry leaders who have joined the EENA Advisory Board. This new Board is a platform gathering the main stakeholders involved with the implementation and operation of 112, namely: politicians, professional user organisations and technology and solution providers. A list of Board members is available at www.eena.org.

"There is a growing subscriber demand for operators to improve location based services for personal safety and emergency response," said Bill Barnes, Openwave's general manager for Location Products. "Openwave is honoured to join the EENA Advisory Board and participate in the evolution of the European Emergency Service 112."

17 years after the creation of the European emergency number 112 by the European Union, the latest Eurobarometer survey reported that 78% of Europeans remain unaware of the 3 digits that can save their lives everywhere in the EU. Diana Wallis, Vice-President of the European Parliament and Member of the newly formed EENA Advisory Board, admits that she did not know the European emergency number 112 before getting involved with EENA. "We need a large publicity campaign to make sure that all Europeans know this number," she added.

"Together with all the members of the EENA Advisory Board we will highlight and award citizens and emergency services who have contributed to a better 112 during the 112 Awards Ceremony on June 3rd," said Diana Wallis. "We want to highlight some great initiatives undertaken throughout the EU that will help to raise the awareness to those authorities which have not yet fully engaged in improving their 112 service. The participation of Commissioner Viviane Reding in this event also shows the positive will of the European Commission to promote good practices in this field," she concluded.

Through a new committee organisation operating under direction from the Advisory Board, EENA intends to promote the European emergency number 112 by launching a Europe-wide 112 Community Education project, create a network of 112 First Responders active in their countries via EENA 112 Chapters, contribute to official legislative documents related to 112, and improve recognition of and response to 112 calls through a 112 Excellence Centre project.

"Large support from the European Parliament to improve the 112 service has provided us with a great opportunity to gather all actors that can contribute to its improvement," said Olivier Paul-Morandini, President and Founder of EENA. "Our whole emergency communications and response service today is facing great challenges. Caller-location is still not available to several emergency services, multilingual calls are not appropriately handled, and the number of false calls to 112 remains very high due to the lack of education campaigns. As a result, intervention times are much too high with regards to what can be expected in the EU," he added.

Dr. Demetrios Pyrros, Chairman of the EENA Advisory Board, noted that, "By working together I am convinced that we can better publicise the number 112, help the authorities with our expertise, and conduct some major pilot projects to ensure an excellent answer to 112 calls."

Dieter Nuessler, President of FEU - the Federation of the European Union Fire Officer Associations - and Member of EENA Advisory Board, added, "One of the main objectives of EENA Advisory Board is to express the needs of emergency responders so that the Voice of 112 can be heard in Brussels."

ABOUT EENA: EENA, the European Emergency Number Association, was set up in 1999 as a non-profit association registered in Belgium to serve as a neutral discussion platform for emergency services, industry and informed citizens with the aim of getting efficient, interoperable and harmonised emergency telecommunications in accordance with citizens' requirements. EENA has been advocating to authorities the issues related to the 112 as more and more EU citizens travel for business or leisure. EENA is also promoting the establishment of a general, pan-European, multilingual, accessible, simplified and efficient system for alerting citizens about imminent or developing emergencies.