EN81-28 compliance, through the network transition and beyond.

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The challenge

The compliance audit trail has gone quiet, and most property owners don’t know it yet.

Property owners are accountable for EN81-28 compliance. The 3-day test call is the standard evidence that a lift’s emergency line is alive. The trouble is that the way that evidence is delivered has quietly changed underneath us.

Traditional lift emergency telephones identify themselves to the alarm-receiving centre using DTMF tones, the P100 protocol that underpins most of the industry. Those tones were designed for analogue lines. Modern 4G and VoLTE networks use voice codecs optimised for human speech, EVS today and IVAS next. They can filter, compress, or drop DTMF entirely.

The voice channel still works. A trapped passenger can still be heard. What may not survive is the lift’s identity. The alarm centre receives a call from “somewhere”, but cannot tell which lift, in which building, on which contract. The test call passes silently. The audit trail is empty. Compliance becomes invisible, and so do real alarms.

This isn’t a future problem. It is happening as PSTN is switched off across the UK and Europe, and as operators complete the move to VoLTE.

“Every emergency call. Every test call. Every device. Logged in Orion.”

EMERGENCY CALL TEST CALL DEVICE SafeLine Orion BS EN 81-28 · AUDIT TRAIL

The solution

SafeLine has digitised the entire emergency-communication chain.

Voice still travels over the voice channel. Alarm identification, fault signalling, and the 3-day test call now travel digitally: from the lift to Orion via MQTT, and from Orion to your alarm-receiving centre via SIA DC09 or SOS V4. Nothing depends on a tone surviving a codec. Every event is logged, every test call is timestamped, and every fault is named.

Voice channel, unchanged The lift SL6 emergency telephone SafeLine Orion Cloud platform, logging Alarm-receiving centre ARC MQTT SIA DC09 / SOS V4 Digital signalling: alarm identification, fault signalling, 3-day test call Every event logged Every test call timestamped Every fault named Nothing depends on a tone surviving a codec.

What you get

Four outcomes. One platform.

01

Compliance

An audit-ready compliance log

Every 3-day test call, emergency alarm, battery fault, power loss, and BUS error. Timestamped, exportable, and attributable to the exact lift it came from.

02

Visibility

A single platform across the estate

New SL6 Orion lifts, firmware-upgraded field units, SL6 VoIP installations, and GLX-bridged legacy devices, all reporting to one Orion dashboard for a real-time overview of every lift.

03

Reliability

Confidence that real alarms get through

Emergency alarms go directly to the ARC. Alarm identification is delivered digitally, not as a tone that a voice codec might drop.

04

Migration

A transition path, not a forklift upgrade

Most in-field SL6 units upgrade by firmware. GLX bridges legacy P100 devices without touching the cabinet. Hardware swaps are the exception, not the rule.

FREQUENTLY ASKED

Common questions.

Does my lift telephone still work after the PSTN switch-off?
Only if it has been migrated to 4G or VoIP. The PSTN line itself is being withdrawn across the UK and most of Europe. A lift telephone still wired to an analogue line will lose its connection when the exchange goes dark. SL6 units with a 4G module can be brought up to full digital signalling by firmware alone.
What replaces a PSTN lift telephone?
A 4G or VoIP emergency telephone connected to Orion. SL6 Orion uses MQTT to report to the platform and delivers alarm identification to your ARC via SIA DC09 or SOS V4. SL6 Orion with SafeLine SIM is the direct replacement for a PSTN lift telephone. SL6 VoIP goes further — removing VoLTE from the picture entirely by running voice and signalling over a SIP connection on the data network.
Who is responsible for EN81-28 compliance?
The party with operational responsibility for the lifts in a building — usually the property owner — is accountable for compliance. Execution is normally delegated to a service provider, but the audit trail belongs to the owner. Orion gives you that audit trail directly, independent of who maintains the lift.
Can older non-SafeLine lift telephones be brought into Orion?
Yes. GLX connects locally to the existing P100 telephone over the PSTN line, reads its DTMF signals, and forwards them to Orion digitally. The phone in the cabinet is unchanged — but your compliance record moves to the same dashboard as the rest of the estate.

See Orion in action — book a demo.

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