Qualcomm is offering its endorsement for the Third Generation Partnership Project’s (3GPP’s) recent approval of the eCall in-band modem specification, which supports the European Union’s eCall road safety initiative.

The 3GPP standardization group has approved the final specs of the eCall in-band modem standard. The specification work was undertaken by 3GPP at the request of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the European Commission, which sought a standardized technical solution to support the deployment of eCall across Europe. With the completion of this work, ETSI has adopted the 3GPP specifications and will publish them as ETSI standards. 

The eCall public road safety initiative is designed to provide rapid assistance to motorists involved in a collision anywhere in the European Union by automatically generating an emergency voice call via the cellular network to local emergency agencies, as well as sending information such as position location. ECall, which is scheduled for introduction and operation across Europe in late 2010, is expected to help save lives by improving notification of road accidents and speeding up emergency service response.

“The eCall initiative is a triumph of technology in serving the public good, and we congratulate the 3GPP, ETSI and EU on successfully making it reality,” said Andrew Gilbert, executive vice president of Qualcomm and president of Qualcomm Internet Services, MediaFLO Technologies and Qualcomm Europe, in a press release. “eCall has been a labor of pride for all its industry contributors, including Qualcomm’s engineering teams in Germany and San Diego. The completion of this standard enables the automobile industry and the public safety sector to move forward with plans to deploy the eCall system.”