7/31/2019 BS 25999 Emergency Call Answering Service (BT) Case Study

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BT provides Ireland withlife critical service

Challenge

In 2007 the Department of Communications,Energy and Natural Resources carried out acommercial tender process to find a solution

provider to build and run the countrysEmergency Call Answering Service (ECAS). TheECAS answers calls made in the Republic ofIreland to the pan-European emergency servicenumber, 112, and to the traditional 999number. The move was driven by new Europeanregulatory requirements and the IrishGovernments ambition to provide a world classservice to the people of Ireland

Aidan Ryan, Telecommunications Advisor at theDepartment, put the scale of the programme incontext. It was a massive transformationalundertaking on an operational and regulatory

level, he said. We were going into theunknown because we had no precedent tofollow. The service was starting from scratch at atime of immense technological change, with thegrowth of mobile as well as changes in theemergency services community.

The new platform would cover all 999 and 112emergency calls, connecting callers to theappropriate emergency service - fire, garda,ambulance and coastguard - 24 hours a day,seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year. Theservice operates under legislation containedwithin the Telecommunications Act and is

regulated by the Commission forCommunications Regulation (ComReg).

Tony OBrien, Emergency Call Handling ServicesManager at ComReg, recognised that the newservice presented major technical and changemanagement challenges. It was something of ajourney into uncharted waters. We knew ourstarting point and we knew our end goal butjoining the origin and destination was alwaysgoing to be difficult. At the start we didntenvisage the complexity of what we were goingto be dealing with.

In addition to the existing call centre location inEastpoint new operator centres were built inNavan, Co. Meath, and Ballyshannon, Co.Donegal. Caller Line Identification was tobecome a key component of the service for thefirst time, with the location of the caller from

both fixed and mobile phones used toautomatically determine the Emergency ServicesControl Centre to which the call should be

forwarded for the first time.

Access to the emergency services was to remainfree to citizens and paid for by the authorisedoperators. EU license obligations ensure everyuser can be connected to a public safety accesspoint free of charge. The telecommunicationsnetwork operator pays a call handling fee set byComReg, the telecom regulator responsible formanaging the new funding model.

BT won the five-year contract and rose to thechallenge of a massive programme. A worldleader in the provision of emergency call

answering, it has run a safe and robust service inthe UK for 75 years, handling around 80,000calls a day. BT would draw heavily on thisexperience for the Irish design, build androll-out, leveraging and providing world classprocesses and procedures, managementstructure and knowledge of thetelecommunications industry.

The Department of Communications, ComRegand the emergency services would work inpartnership with BT to measure, monitor andimprove the effectiveness and efficiency of theend-to-end call handling process, and to foster

and promote an environment of positivecollaboration across all the stakeholders.

Benefits

ECAS in Ireland was a unique green fieldprogramme, a total outsource of a complex lifecritical service that drew on all of BTsknow-how, project management and changemanagement skills as well as technologicalexpertise. It also represented the largest changeprogramme for all emergency services on how112/999 calls are handled, routed and handedover.

BT's commercial approach was to fund theupfront investment and to recover its coststhrough a small fee for every call. ComReg wouldmanage the governance of the model.

Case Study

Emergency CallAnswering Service

7/31/2019 BS 25999 Emergency Call Answering Service (BT) Case Study

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Offices worldwide

The services described in this publication are subject to availability and may be modified from time to time.Services and equipment are provided subject to BT Communications Ireland Ltd respective standard conditionsof contract. Nothing in this publication forms any part of any contract.

BT Communications Ireland LtdRegistered office: Grand Canal Plaza, Riverside Tower,Upper Grand Canal Street, Dublin 4. 5 Lanyon Place, Belfast, BT1 3LP.Phone +353 (0)1 4325000 Phone +44 (0)28 9021 6161

Freephone 1800 924 924 Freephone 0800 800 152Registered in Ireland No. 141524

Having established the approach, BT built thethree operator centres and went through arigorous recruitment and training programme,creating 100 jobs. Two equipment centres wereset up, housing the hardware and thebest-of-breed ECAS platform that BT deployed.The network built by BT to enable the ECASoperations is an appropriate mix of robust andreliable technologies, constantly monitored to

ensure that the service is always available to thepublic.

The ECAS is also required to adhere to a numberof internationally recognised standards toprovide evidence of its approach to quality,information security management and its abilityto operate on a continual basis. Accordingly theECAS has been audited and been certified to thefollowing recognised standards, ISO 9001:2008,ISO27001:2005 and BS25999-2:2007. . Thisone of the first projects here to achieve thesedemanding standards, demonstrating BTscommitment to ensuring that Irelands critical

national infrastructure is fully secure for thepeople who rely upon it.

The technology deployed by BT to provide theplatform that underpins the service is tried andtested in other jurisdictions and providessignificant advantages. Future-proofed forsubsequent improvements, it also removes thecomplete reliance on the Public SwitchedTelephone Network (PSTN ).

The average call answering time improved from a1.3 seconds to 0.5 seconds. Morenon-emergency calls, hoax calls, and erroneous

calls are now filtered out at the first point ofcontact.

We take and route the calls quickly, accuratelyand safely, filtering out the majority of false callswith best-in-class procedures, said Alex Manek,ECAS Policy & Performance Manager, BT. Wehave carefully trained the operators and workedclosely with the emergency services to make theIrish service as efficient as possible.

When an ECAS operator is contacted they handoff the call to the requested emergency serviceas speedily as possible. Refresher training foroperators and supervisors takes place everymonth in the operator centres.

The ECAS experience of BT was invaluable whenit came to creating an Irish service. The ability toaccurately forecast demand, schedule the right

number of operators while always retaining thecapability to respond to any type of emergency,are skills that BT has honed through experience.

Core BT strengths ensure that ECAS runs on ahighly resilient infrastructure, across bothequipment and operator centres. Uptime for theIP network is as close as possible to 100 per cent,and it is flexible enough for operator centrelocations to be changed as required.

The programme has been a unique mix ofpeople, process and technology, anddemonstrates BTs broad range of expertise,

said Alex Manek. We developed a solution thatincorporates BTs world class processes, a worldclass operator service and best-in-classtechnologies.

The terms of the contract make it easy to gaugethe success of the programme. BT has met keymetrics so we can quickly measure the quality,the efficiency and the expediency of the service,down to the level of each call at any time of theday. The big test is if it works and it does. It worksvery well, said ComRegs Tony OBrien.

The Department of Communications, Energy and

Natural Resources is also pleased with theoutcome. The service is live, its working andthere are no problems. It has delivered what itwas supposed to, said Aidan Ryan. Manyorganisations were involved in the successfuldelivery of the service. As a big internationalorganisation BT certainly brought attributes tothe table.

Case Study

Emergency CallAnswering Service