A new set of proposals from the European Commission (EC) has highlighted the issue of calls made to the emergency services over VoIP.

There have been concerns raised that using the internet to make potentially life-saving voice calls may not be totally reliable, especially in disaster situations.

But the EC placed its faith in the technology provider by VoIP suppliers and proposed that all IP telephony services should be able to make 999 calls.

James Allen, principal consultant at telecoms advisor firm Analysys, said: "Under the new proposal, if a user can call telephone numbers at all, calls to the emergency services must be possible.

"This will mean that VoIP services…will need to support such calls and this will no longer be optional. This measure will undoubtedly save lives."

Other proposals from the EC include 'harmonising' the regulation of telecoms services across Europe so that all countries receive similar provision technologies such as broadband or IP telephony.