23.05.2019

The National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications of Romania (ANCOM) recalls the users that calls to 112 emergency number are free of charge and can be initiated either from a landline or from a mobile phone. The Special Telecommunications Service has recently launched the mobile app “Apel 112” (Call 112) which enables the transmission of the caller’s geographic position to the Single National Emergency Call System (SNUAU) from the moment of initiation of an emergency call.

The app “Apel 112” allows thus to locate the 112 callers when the emergency call is generated from their mobile telephone network. The app uses the data (internet access) and GPS services and is free for downloading and installation on the mobile phone from Google Play and App Store, being compatible with the mobile phones using Android or iOS systems. To use this app, the users need to have the data service enabled within their subscriptions or prepaid cards.

Although installed and active, the app will not automatically send the caller’s location in the following specific situations:

In these specific cases, the app users that call the emergency number 112 may send verbally the coordinates which otherwise would be accessed through the “Apel 112” app. Further information is available here.

Persons with disabilities

The hearing and/or speech impaired persons may use the SMS 113 service to announce emergency situations through SMS. The functioning of the 113 service is only possible if the beneficiaries with hearing and/or speech impairment and their mobile numbers are registered in the SNUAU database. Further information is available here.

Additional information

112 is the single European emergency number for alerting the Police, Ambulance, SMURD, Fire Brigade and Gendarmerie and one can call 112, where there is an emergency circumstance, even if the user’s phone is not covered by the network. ANCOM elaborates regulations which set the technical and economic conditions applicable to communications to the Single National Emergency Call System (SNUAU), in view of the 112 emergency service provision to the citizens. These regulations are in line with the provisions of the European legal framework in the field.

At the end of 2016, ANCOM issued a decision imposing on the providers of public mobile telephone networks the obligation to take all the necessary steps to enable transmission of caller location information containing the latitude and longitude data that characterize the geographic position of the caller’s terminal equipment, to the SNUAU administrator, within maximum 20 seconds from the moment of initiation of an emergency call, at least for 112 emergency calls initiated from adequately enabled mobile terminals. Further information on the ANCOM decision is available here.