A study published for the European Commission in May 2026 put a number on a problem the industry has been circling for years. Without intervention, around 64 million vehicles in the EU could lose emergency call functionality as national operators retire their 2G and 3G networks on uncoordinated timetables.
For vehicles still to be built, the transition is settled. Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1180 requires new M1 and N1 vehicle types placed on the market from 1 January 2026 to support eCall over packet-switched networks. From 1 January 2027 the same requirement applies to all new vehicles. Anything reaching the market after that date carries Next Generation eCall over 4G and 5G.
The deadline is the straightforward part. What sits underneath it is a coverage commitment across every market a vehicle is sold into, and that is not settled at all.
Where the rules stand
The original eCall obligation dates from Regulation (EU) 2015/758 and has applied to new M1 and N1 vehicle types since 2018. That system was designed around circuit-switched networks. The Minimum Set of Data, a payload of up to 140 bytes carrying location, time, direction of travel, VIN and activation type, travels over an in-band modem inside a 112 voice call.
NG eCall works differently. It runs over packet-switched connectivity using IMS, so the emergency call becomes a SIP session over LTE or 5G and the MSD travels as emergency call data within it. Three regulatory instruments matter for planning purposes:
- Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1180 sets the vehicle-side dates of 1 January 2026 for new types and 1 January 2027 for all new vehicles.
- Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1084 covers the answering points. New PSAPs have had to support packet-switched eCall since May 2024, and already-deployed PSAPs since 1 January 2026. PSAPs must also keep accepting circuit-switched calls for as long as at least one circuit-switched network remains in operation in that member state.
- Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1871 updated the referenced standards, including EN 17184:2024.
Interoperability testing is still running. ETSI held NG eCall Plugtests in Ljubljana in June 2026, hosted by Telekom Slovenije on a live 4G network rather than a simulated one, testing in-vehicle systems against PSAPs under ETSI TS 103 683 with EN 17240:2024 conformance support.
Switch-off timetables are set operator by operator
Planning against a single European date is not possible, because no such date exists.
Deutsche Telekom currently plans to close its 2G network on 30 June 2028 and refarm the spectrum. Orange is phasing 2G out across mainland France through 2026, region by region, with 3G closure starting at the end of 2028. In the UK, the major operators have already switched off 3G, while EE plans to begin retiring 2G from May 2029, O2 from summer 2029 and Vodafone during 2030, against a national commitment to retire 2G by 2033. The Netherlands winds 2G down gradually to the end of 2027. Belgium, Poland and Slovakia hold 2G until the end of 2030 while having already closed 3G. Switzerland has had no 2G since 2023, and the last national 3G network closed in early 2026.
The GSA counted 313 completed, planned or in-progress 2G and 3G switch-offs across 89 countries and territories by the end of June 2026, with 158 operators finished, 119 with dates set and 36 mid-process.
For a passenger car, this is an inconvenience with a known end date. For an OEM selling one platform into thirty markets, it is thirty separate timetables set by individual operators rather than by governments, and a vehicle crossing three borders in a day encounters three different network estates.
The Commission study recommended formal guidance asking member states to preserve at least one circuit-switched network until at least 2030. That is a recommendation. It does not bind any operator and it does not override a national schedule.
What changes for OEMs once eCall is an IMS session
The circuit-switched version of eCall had one useful property. It worked more or less anywhere a 2G signal reached, which in rural Europe was almost everywhere, because 2G sat in low frequency bands with good propagation and was carried by every operator a vehicle might roam onto.
NG eCall inherits a different set of dependencies. The call needs packet-switched coverage at the roadside. It needs VoLTE or voice over NR to be implemented on whichever network the vehicle attaches to, including networks the vehicle is roaming on rather than the home network the OEM contracted. And the receiving PSAP has to handle the session correctly. Each of those is well specified and none of them is uniform in practice, which is why the industry is still holding interoperability events rather than assuming the chain works end to end.
That turns a type approval item into a connectivity operations question. An OEM can homologate a compliant in-vehicle system and still have a vehicle that cannot complete an emergency call on a particular network in a particular market, which is a different kind of exposure from a compliance failure and one that surfaces after the vehicle is sold.
Where NTN fits in the NG eCall transition
Satellite does not solve the legacy problem. A vehicle built in 2016 with a 2G modem cannot be given a satellite bearer through software, and aftermarket solutions are not expected at scale before 2030. Any proposition that offers satellite as an answer for the existing parc is describing something else.
The case for non-terrestrial networks sits on the other side of the transition. Once the emergency call depends on packet-switched coverage, the residual failure mode is geographic, and that is what NTN addresses.
The technical and commercial groundwork for this is already in place. 3GPP standardised non-terrestrial access in Release 17, which means satellite operates as a bearer inside the same air interface rather than as a separate radio, terminal and subscription. The 5GAA roadmap places emergency call in the first phase of NTN deployment from 2027, alongside stolen vehicle recovery, over narrowband. And the eCall standards work already anticipates satellite support in defined circumstances.
The payload arithmetic works in the right direction. An emergency voice call over narrowband satellite runs at a few kilobits per second, and the MSD is smaller again. This is the traffic profile that current automotive NTN handles today. At Mobile World Congress in February 2026, Cubic3 demonstrated a satellite voice call for connected vehicles alongside Viasat, Qualcomm Technologies and Fraunhofer IIS over a 3GPP-compliant network. In July, a BMW iX3 placed a satellite voice call from its own infotainment screen at 5GAA Meeting Week in Munich, over NB-IoT on Viasat’s L-band network.
Satellite works as a fallback rather than a replacement for terrestrial coverage. It covers the places where terrestrial coverage has no commercial reason to exist, which happen to be the places where an emergency call matters most.
Questions worth asking in a platform review
For any programme reaching production before the end of the decade:
- Does the in-vehicle system support NG eCall across the full homologation footprint, or across launch markets only?
- Which networks in that footprint have confirmed VoLTE support for emergency sessions, including networks the vehicle will roam onto?
- What is the defined behaviour where packet-switched coverage is absent at the point of an incident?
- Can the connectivity architecture accept a satellite bearer through software and profile changes, or does adding one require a hardware change across the model range?
- Who holds the PSAP interoperability evidence for each market, and how current is it?
- What is the plan for vehicles already sold in markets where the last circuit-switched network closes before 2030?
The last question has no clean answer today. It is still the one to ask.
Frequently asked questions
What is NG eCall and how does it differ from the original system?
The original eCall placed a 112 voice call over a circuit-switched 2G or 3G network and sent the Minimum Set of Data through an in-band modem inside that call. NG eCall uses packet-switched connectivity over 4G and 5G, with the emergency call carried as an IMS session and the MSD delivered as data within it.
When does NG eCall become mandatory in the EU?
New M1 and N1 vehicle types placed on the market from 1 January 2026 must support it. From 1 January 2027 the requirement covers all new vehicles.
What happens to existing vehicles with 2G eCall when networks close?
They lose the function in that market once the last circuit-switched network there closes. EU rules require PSAPs to keep handling circuit-switched calls while at least one such network operates nationally, but that obligation ends when the networks do.
Can eCall work over satellite?
The standards work contemplates satellite support in specific circumstances, and emergency call sits in the first phase of the 5GAA roadmap for NTN deployment from 2027. Satellite voice calls from production vehicles have been demonstrated over 3GPP-compliant non-terrestrial networks. It applies to vehicles built with a compatible bearer rather than to the existing fleet.
Does NG eCall work when a vehicle is roaming in another member state?
It depends on the visited network supporting the emergency session and the receiving PSAP handling it. This is the reason the industry continues to run interoperability testing rather than treating cross-border operation as given.
Before your next platform review
Cubic3 manages the network agreements, roaming arrangements and eSIM profiles that an emergency call over 4G and 5G depends on, across every market an OEM sells into. Bring us your homologation footprint and we will show you where the gaps sit.
