Accelerating Emergency Location and Response in 5G and Beyond Networks

Abstract

Emergency caller localization is a critical challenge for public safety agencies, with most emergency calls now originating from mobile devices. Existing solutions such as Advanced Mobile Location (AML) and Network-Initiated Location Request (NILR) improve accuracy but suffer from delays and fragmentation across countries. By exploiting early signaling data and exposing Radio Access Network (RAN)-level analytics, this paper proposes an earlier notification of positioning data without additional overhead on the user device. A proof-of-concept implementation based on OpenAirInterface (OAI) demonstrates the key concepts of the approach and suggest that RAN-aware positioning can complement existing AML and NILR systems, providing a scalable and standards-compliant approach for emergency services in 5G and beyond networks. The proposed approach introduces a novel use of 5G signaling that challenges traditional assumptions and opens a new design space for timely and energy-efficient emergency services.