Emergency text service trial under way

People with a hearing loss or with speech impairments are needed to help test the new UK-wide system which will allow people to send an SMS text message to the 999 emergency services from a mobile phone.

It is vitally important that everyone can get swift help in an emergency and BT, RNID, mobile network operators and the emergency services have been working together to develop this solution.

Having successfully completed technical and expert usability tests, customer trials have now started to test how well the service works with real-life emergenciesinvolving people with a hearing loss or speech impairment using the service if they need to make a real emergency call.

If you would like to take part in the trial register your mobile phone by visiting www.emergencysms.org.uk

The new service is expected to launch in 2010 if the trial is successful. For more information about text-based communications visit www.textrelay.org

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