FOR AUTHORITIES AND DECISION MAKERS
4 of 6 steps in a rescue chain sit inside a telecom operator
Finding a missing person from mobile network data runs across two organizations: the rescue service, which owns the aircraft, the crew and the locating equipment on board, and the mobile operator, which holds the data that tells that equipment where to work.
THE LEGAL GROUND
What telecom operators are already required to do
Across Europe, operators are legally obliged to provide network and location data to rescue services in an emergency. This is not goodwill. An operator that refuses during a live operation is breaking the law. A search begins in one of two ways.
When someone calls 112
The position reaches the emergency center automatically. Nobody has to ask for it. The precision varies based on network coverage and the handset technology.
When there is no emergency call
A person missing in terrain, an accident where no call was made, an alarm raised by a relative. The request is governed by national law. Depending on the country, a rescue leader, the police or a prosecutor makes the decision, and the operator is obliged to act on it.
However the search begins, the chain that follows is the same. What differs is only how the request starts.
01
One consolidated search, with an answer in seconds
The rescue service sends a request. The operator runs the search, in one consolidated system. A search for one person, under normal conditions, typically returns in about five seconds.
​
No manual data aggregation across several systems, no transcription step, and no dependency on who is on shift.
02
Cell data and the distance to the cell tower
The last known cell on its own can point at hundreds of square kilometers of forest or wilderness, close to an impossible search area.
​
Add the direction of the cell and MLC positioning, the distance measurement the operator's positioning system already produces, and the same answer narrows to an area tens of meters across.
03
The position reaches the crew over an API
Delivered into the crew's own systems and map, in real time, while they are airborne. Where no API is available it can be exported and shared as a file or by radio.
​
It arrives in the same format every time, which the crew's own system already understands.
04
The airborne equipment narrows the search
As the helicopter approaches the indicated area it connects to the handset and begins triangulating for a more exact position. MPDLS, the mobile base station carried on the aircraft, does this in combination with the telecom network data.
It cannot do it on network data it does not have.
05
The team on the ground works with the position directly
Rescue personnel on site get the position themselves, through access that is temporary, scoped to the case, revocable and logged.
​
The last part of a rescue often happens on foot, and it is the part where every question routed back through the operator costs minutes.
06
The person is reached
The chain ends with a rescue, not with a position.
How a Search and Rescue location request works, step by step
It runs across two organizations: the rescue service and the mobile operator. The rescue aircraft does not wait for the early steps. It launches on a first indication of direction and is over the terrain within minutes, while the operator's search is still running.
​
Every minute of that is a crew burning fuel and daylight over ground they cannot narrow.
THE SELF-ASSESSMENT
Which of the six steps are in place where you are?
The next time you sit down with your operators, "we comply with the law" is an answer to a different question. These six are the ones to ask instead.
THE QUESTIONS TO ASK
IN PLACE WHEN
NOT YET WHEN
01. When a rescue service requests a location, who runs the search and in how many systems?
The operator, in one system, automatically aggregated, any hour of any day
Across several systems, by hand, by whichever specialist can be reached
02. What does the operator actually send?
The last known cell, its direction, and MLC positioning
Cell data only
03. How does the position reach the crew?
Over an API, into their own map or systems, in real time
Only by radio, or not at all while they are airborne
04. How large is the area handed to the aircraft?
Tens of meters across
Hundreds of square kilometers
05. Can the team on the ground work with the position themselves?
Yes, with temporary, scoped, logged access
No, everything routes back through the operator for the whole operation
06. How long does it take today, from alert to the person being reached?
Hours
Days, or too late
THE SEARCH AREA
Hundreds of square kilometers against tens of meters
The same request, answered two ways: a cell identifier that could be anywhere in the larger shape, or an area a crew can search.
WHY THE GAP EXISTS
Why a legal obligation has not produced a fast answer
The obligation is strict. Operators must supply this data, and refusing during a live operation is an offense. The gap is neither permission nor willingness.
​
A request can only ask for what the person making it knows exists. Cell direction, the measurement that narrows the area, delivery into the crew's map, access for the team on the ground: all available, much of it never asked for.
​
And an obligation to act urgently is not an obligation to be able to act fast. Searching deep into network data by hand takes hours, and doing that as quickly as a person can is compliant. Nothing requires that the same answer be possible in seconds, or precise, or in a form the crew's system can read. A cell identifier read out over the telephone, hours later, is compliant.
​
Compliance is not capability.
NORWAY CASE
What changes when all six steps are in place
In Norway the complete chain runs nationally. The time from alert to a missing person being rescued fell from 15 hours to 2. Across the last 100 rescue operations it accounts for 30 lives that would otherwise have been lost.
​
That is the whole chain and not any one supplier's part of it: MPDLS on the aircraft, and the operators' full data foundation behind it with every source connected.
​
Telia Norway uses REX from Subtonomy for all Search and Rescue requests.
AFTER THE OPERATION
What the record shows when the operation is reviewed
Rescue operations are reviewed afterwards. By the authority itself, and where something went wrong, by whoever investigates it. The question is the same every time: what was known, at what point, and on what basis the decision was made.
​
A location request handled by telephone at three in the morning leaves a note in somebody's handwriting. The same request handled through a system leaves a record: who asked, under which legal ground, what was searched, what was returned, and to whom.
​
That record is not administration. It is what shows that the decisions taken during the operation were taken on the information that existed at the time.
The question to add to the six: what record does the operator keep of each request, and can you get hold of it?
What to ask a mobile operator for
A consolidated, automated search — across the operator's network sources, in one system, available at any hour and without the manual steps where errors happen.
The last known cell and its direction — narrows the search area immediately
Positioning precision beyond the cell — so the area handed to the crew is tens of meters across rather than hundreds of square kilometers. MLC is common platform, often including Timing Advance; the requirement is the precision, not the mechanism
Delivery over an API — into the rescue crew's own systems, in real time
Temporary, scoped, revocable and logged access — that keeps working while the crew is on the ground
Several searches running at the same time — because a major incident is never one missing person.
A logged record of every request — who asked, on what grounds, what was searched, what was returned and to whom
Two integrations, on data sources the operator already holds, and the platform that consolidates the search, logs it and delivers the result. No new data program, no legal program to begin, no new network equipment. Weeks rather than years.
MLC positioning
Mobile Location Centre tells you where the phone is right now.
Cell inventory
The cell and cell direction data. Cell direction is the difference between sending a crew to a circle and sending them to a sector.
What it takes an operator to put this in place
Questions this raises
Obliged. Across the EU, operators must provide network and location data to rescue services in an emergency, and refusing during a live operation is an offense. Member states also require them to be reachable around the clock for exactly this. The gap is not permission.
And an obligation to act urgently is not an obligation to be able to act fast: searching deep into network data by hand takes hours, and doing that as quickly as a person can is compliant.
No. The obligation exists. What does not exist in most countries is a shared, written understanding of what can be asked for and what an operator should be able to deliver when asked. That is a specification, not a statute, and it is the faster of the two.
Possibly nothing, and the six questions above are how to find out. Where something is missing it is usually what the request asks for: the direction of the cell, the distance measurement that narrows the area, delivery into the crew's own system, and access for the team on the ground.
It depends on the country. In some, a rescue leader or the police can require the data directly where there is danger to life. In others a prosecutor or a court decides first. The decision sits with the authority either way, and the operator acts on the request it receives.
There is no aircraft to buy, no new network equipment, and no new legal basis to establish. What the operator needs is the two integrations and a platform that consolidates the search, logs it, and delivers the result as an API call or an export.
That platform carries a license cost. It is a modest one by the standards of this chain: few source systems, a small volume of data, and little server capacity behind it. Who carries it is a national question, and a smaller one than the procurement that has already happened.
No. A request concerns one named missing person, is made by an authority under emergency provisions, and is logged from the moment it is made. Nothing runs continuously, and the capability holds no history of its own.
A major incident is never one missing person, so the capability has to run several searches at the same time rather than queue them. It is on the list above and it is worth asking about specifically.
The pattern is European. Every country has a legal basis for emergency disclosure, and the national frameworks differ in who decides and under which instrument. What is consistent across them is the distance between what may be requested and what usually is.
Talk to someone who has walked this chain
If you are working on this where you are and want to compare notes on what the operator side involves, start here.
​
Fill in the form and someone who has worked on this chain will come back to you.
More on Search and Rescue
REX FOR SEARCH AND RESCUE OPERATIONS
.jpg)
