Your emergency cannot be completed as dialed...
May 12, 2010 12:30 PM   Subscribe

Why doesn't 911 work on my imported cell phone?

I'm in the US, using a T-Mobile prepaid SIM card with an unlocked cell phone originally used with a Chinese carrier.

Normal calls work just fine, but if I try to dial 911, I get the message "Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and try again." It's the same message as for any malformed phone number.

As you can imagine, this was a somewhat alarming discovery. Luckily there was another phone nearby at the time.

T-Mobile support has been worse than useless, cycling me through three script-drones who asked useful questions like "Is your phone turned on?", so I'm really hoping someone here can shed some light on the problem.

I've tried poking around the phone's menus, but there doesn't seem to be any emergency number setting I can access.

The phone is a Samsung "Anycall" SGH-D908.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl to Technology (6 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: Have you tried 112? That's the international emergency number that is (I think) acknowledged by all mobile phone carriers.
posted by Brockles at 12:43 PM on May 12, 2010


Response by poster: 112 works! Awesome. I had no idea there was an international standard.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 12:49 PM on May 12, 2010


Both 112 and 911 is supposed to work on all GSM phones wherever they are, and will work on most networks even if you don't have any SIM-card (or are out of minutes). See ITU-T E.161.1: Guidelines to select Emergency Number for public telecommunications networks:

"For mobile equipment (ME) based on the GSM/UMTS system there is a built-in recognition of the emergency numbers 112 and 911. If the SIM/USIM/ISIM card is not present in the ME then in addition to 112 and 911 the following national numbers will act in a similar way as national emergency numbers; 000, 08, 110, 999, 118 and 119 [3GPP TS 22.101]. It will be left to the Member State to decide whether the public telecommunications network accept emergency calls without the SIM/USIM/ISIM."

That 911 didn't work is worrisome, and if 112 doesn't work either is really bad...
posted by rpn at 12:54 PM on May 12, 2010


Best answer: It is odd the phone wouldn't allow 911 especially with a US SIM in it. I know on some of the European imports I've had used on T-mobile, aside from unlocking on some of them I had to de-carrier customize it so the phone became completely unlocked which was above and beyond unlocking it to use another SIM. In my case, customizing the servers for MMS and data services. But I do remember they actually unlocked all the devices menus including emergency calls and other base functions. Depending on your phone, some of that may not be unlockable at all.

I never had the need to call 911 with my bootleg phones, but perhaps in your case the customizations the telco in China did was take 911 from the list of emergency numbers and perhaps assigned it to another number which T-Mo USA couldn't connect. Because the T-mo network (even without a SIM) would have known what to do if the phone sent the numbers 911. So I suspect your phone sent something else, like a specific Chinese number like 999/120/119/110. Note that China doesn't specifically use 112 either which supports my hypothesis the phone did something specifically with 911.

112 passed through unmolested and so T-Mo USA routed that to 911. Still very odd behavior. If you can't find an enthusiast group for that phone that can reprogram it, you may wish to put in a contact in your address book emergency and have the number as 112 just in the future you or another user of the phone needs to call.
posted by birdherder at 1:36 PM on May 12, 2010


Both 112 and 911 is supposed to work on all GSM phones wherever they are, and will work on most networks even if you don't have any SIM-card (or are out of minutes).

This is widely believed, and widely untrue. The specs say the networks should do that, but it seems a lot don't.

For example, no UK network, and no EU network that I've tried it on (France, Spain), will let you dial an emergency number without a SIM card.
posted by Mwongozi at 3:49 PM on May 12, 2010


There's more useful info here, including this:
The mobile phone and the SIM card have a preprogrammed list of emergency numbers. When the user tries to set up a call using an emergency number known by a GSM or 3G phone, the special emergency call setup takes place. The actual number is not even transmitted into network, but the network redirects the emergency call to the local emergency desk. Most GSM mobile phones can dial emergency calls even when the phone keyboard is locked, the phone is without a SIM card, or an emergency number is entered instead of the PIN.
Most GSM mobile phones have 112, 999 and 911 as pre-programmed emergency numbers that are always available. The SIM card issued by the operator can contain additional country-specific emergency numbers that can be used even when roaming abroad. The GSM network can also update the list of well-known emergency numbers when the phone registers to it.
posted by Mwongozi at 3:52 PM on May 12, 2010


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