Calling 911 on landline with no service

September 26, 2024 12:29 PM

I think it used to be that you could call 911 on a landline phone with no phone service, is this still the case? Or other safety measures for aging parents if they lose cell service/power, for example, in a hurricane?

My mother is approaching 80 and is very reliant on her mobile phone for all communications. She hasn't had a landline in years.

She is currently in the middle of effects of the hurricane happening (western North Carolina), and hypothetically, how could she be able to reach emergency services if power is lost and/or cell service is disrupted (ie the network is down)? Assume no power or internet or cell service (even satellite service, like pretend her phone is dead and unchargeable or whatever).

I remember years ago hearing that even if you didn't have landline service, you could still plug in an old corded phone and dial out 911 on a dead line. Is this still the case? I can't find reliable information.

Obviously I can't do anything about this today, but for the future, it would make us both feel reassured if she were to have a way to reach emergency services that didn't require power or cell service. If the landline/911 thing isn't a thing anymore, are there alternatives?

Thanks!

posted by greta simone to Technology (22 answers total)

I think the question with whether there is even landline service to the house. If she plugs in a phone does she get a dial tone? If not, I don't think it would be able to get through to 911.

Maybe ask if is a neighborhood watch/support network that would be checking on people in an emergency. If there is, they may have a sign she can post to indicate that she needs help. Local city hall might have an emergency prepardness department that could advise you on the local options.
posted by metahawk at 12:43 PM on September 26 [1 favorite]

With a landline, given no dial tone (ie no service) dialing 911 won't work.

I think what the OP is recalling is with certain (maybe all) cell phones in the US, dialing 911 (or its equivalent, elsewhere) works, if you're in a coverage area, even if you haven't signed that phone up for any service (or it has lapsed).
posted by Rash at 12:45 PM on September 26 [13 favorites]

Landline phones typically use power supplied by the phone company and are often usable when other lines are down. But if enough various lines are down, they will not work. If you have an old landline installed but do not have an account, yes, you can call 911 if there's a dialtone. Also, as the old landline services are bought and sold and fractured, it's harder to make promises.

In an emergency, texts may still go through on mobile phones, even when calls don't.

She can fill the car with gas and make sure she has a car charger so if she's without power for a while, she'll have access if towers are functional. I try to remember to download books and video on my phone and tablet because it wards off that isolated feeling.

Fill the fridge and freezer with bottles of water; way more efficient, will stay cold longer. Set fridge and freezer to coldest settings, maybe cover with blankets to keep stuff cold longer.

She can call the non-emergency number for fire dept and ask for their advice. This stuff is local, they'll know.

She should have stored water - jars, pitchers, etc., for drinking and a bucket of water for flushing, probably fill the bathtub. And apples, crackers, peanut butter and other shelf-stable foods for a day or so. Some cash in case credit card networks & atms are down. LED flashlight - I have LED and battery string lights which are quite useful and cheery.

Ideally, neighbors are a great resource. Give her our best. I'm a geezer in Maine and lose power often, it'll be okay.
posted by theora55 at 1:09 PM on September 26 [3 favorites]

As Rash says, if there is no dial tone there will be no service. If there is a dial tone it might work, but I would test it.

Given the way telecom works today I think she'll find cell service is more reliable than landlines anyway, especially if said lines are above ground. It's much easier to harden cellphone towers than it is a network of telephone poles.

I live in a place with unreliable power (outages can last days) so I keep a solar powered cell phone charger charged and ready to go.

People more organized/concerned than me keep satellite phones charged up just in case the cell network fails, but that has never happened.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:11 PM on September 26 [2 favorites]

This was possible but it depended on the phone company. Sometimes there was a grace period after a disconnection. This was a couple decades ago though.

I can't figure out how it all works anymore -- and I worked for years on landlines as a rep and pretty much knew how it all worked. Now I can't even figure out who would provide her with a landline and dont know who they could call.

I would think it it very unlikely for them to be able to do this. After a while phone companies reused the lines.

I do think it works with some cell phones though.
posted by beccaj at 1:12 PM on September 26

Response by poster: Hey y'all, again let's assume that cell service is down (like a network outtage) or the battery has died and she isn't able to charge it, and there's no power in general.

I'm not asking about any other precautions (needing water and snacks) I'm just asking like hey, she broke her hip and can't move to knock on a neighbor's door and there's no power and her cell is dead or the towers are down. Then what?

She's not in a position to organize a neighborhood watch or whatever.

Any alternatives?
posted by greta simone at 1:21 PM on September 26

And even landlines depend on a battery at the local loop junction of the telco, so their lifespan is limited as well during a power outage.
posted by nickggully at 1:21 PM on September 26

There are text-based satellite communicators. The price of the gadget itself isn't prohibitive, but the service plans are kind of expensive for a rare contingency.

For example, the Garmin InReach Messenger costs $300 and lets you use an app on your phone to send and receive texts via the Iridium network; service plans start at $15/mo. From Spot, the Spot X looks like a ruggedized Blackberry, costs $250, and service costs $12/mo and up.

Both of these are mostly intended for wilderness adventurers.

Recent iPhones also have the ability to send SOS messages via satellite. It wouldn't be hard to leave a chunky powerbank in her house that she could plug into when the power went out.
posted by adamrice at 1:25 PM on September 26 [1 favorite]

From my memory and understanding, I think you may be conflating two things:

-for an existing landline connection (simple non powered handset connected directly to the wall using an RJ cable), you could continue to use the phone and call emergency services when the power was out

-any cell phone with power, even if it's unregistered and off plan, should be able to connect to a cell tower to connect to 911
posted by phunniemee at 1:29 PM on September 26 [8 favorites]

there's no power in general.

I believe the feedback you're getting is that "no power" is not a realistic scenario to plan for. Between solar power and battery packs you could easily run out of food and water before you run dry.

As I mentioned above, a satellite phone is a fine backup and used by people all over the world who live where there are no cell networks to begin with.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:29 PM on September 26

Very brief FYI: I heard "power banks" mentioned above, I can say that this 10 thousand mAh is the one I use and it was only about $13 USD.
posted by forthright at 2:03 PM on September 26

Recent iPhones also have the ability to send SOS messages via satellite. It wouldn't be hard to leave a chunky powerbank in her house that she could plug into when the power went out.

Apple says it needs a clear view of the sky so this wouldn't be expected to work if you can't drag yourself outside, and even then it might require walking around a bit to get unobstructed line-of-sight to a satellite. You could get a satellite internet setup that uses a dish mounted to the house, but setting that up to work off-grid is a big project.

I agree that it's that dialing 911 from a land line probably doesn't need service, but it also definitely needs a dial tone. And the dial tone needs the local landline infrastructure to be powered and the physical wires not destroyed by the same thing that took out the power. My parents have a landline but it's not bulletproof: it sometimes goes out, and then they have to walk outside to get a cell signal. And if she's not a subscriber then there's no guarantee that they'll even reconnect her line if it breaks.

imho the best option is a specific neighbor that can be trusted to knock on the door every day during an outage, ideally with a door key to enter if necessary.

I would also give her a big hecking USB battery bank that is just plugged in at all times, and will be ready to go in an outage. Like, one that could charge her phone 10+ times.
posted by BungaDunga at 2:04 PM on September 26

by big I mean something like this. overkill for a lot of situations but having a Big Thing that can be parked near an outlet and kept plugged in, rather than lost behind the couch has something to be said for it.
posted by BungaDunga at 2:08 PM on September 26 [1 favorite]

You may find this page helpful- https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/voip-and-911-service

It used to be that a corded landline could still make calls (including 911) when the power was out because the small amount of power that was needed for a call was carried along with the telephone cables and wasn’t dependent on the overall power grid working.

However, with many phone lines being switched out(?) /upgraded (?) to being carried through with VIOP internet, that option no longer works (as noted in the link above).

A cheap corded phone that’s plugged in may give her a chance of testing if it works, but I don’t know how to tell if it’s VIOP or not before the power goes out
posted by raccoon409 at 2:42 PM on September 26 [3 favorites]

BungaDunga: "Apple says it needs a clear view of the sky so this wouldn't be expected to work if you can't drag yourself outside"

You're right. In fact all satellite communicators need some line-of-sight to the sky. I've used Garmin's (which I mentioned in my previous post). It doesn't need a perfect, unobstructed view of the sky, but it does need some.
posted by adamrice at 3:15 PM on September 26 [1 favorite]

For a person mostly confined to a home, redundancy is probably going to be your best bet. A traditional landline, possibly with a Life Alert fob ("I've fallen, and I can't get up!") in addition to a cell phone.

The landline phone will operate in a power outage, as long as the batteries in the CO hold up. The Life Alert (or similar) services may have their own battery backups, but if not, running one off a decent-sized UPS will provide a lot of runtime in a power outage, given how little power they draw.

A cell phone is easier for them to always have with them, and if rarely used and in a good signal area, will run for days on standby. Easy to charge with a USB power brick as others have mentioned upthread. You can even get them an Apple Watch to pair with an iPhone (there are probably Android alternatives as well). The Apple Watch can be set with Fall Detection enabled, and will notify an emergency contact if it registers a dangerous fall event. You can also make an SOS call from the watch by holding the side button.

In a disaster like a hurricane, where a region suffers extensive infrastructure damage, cellular/wireless services are likely to be restored much more quickly than landlines. It's just easier to get towers here and there up and running, compared to repairing damage to miles and miles of downed lines running to each home. That's part of why cellular is so popular in developing nations; it's so much easier to roll out.

Others have mentioned satellite phones, and I was kinda thinking about PLBs (Personal Locator Beacons) but like sat phones, they require at least some clear access to the sky, as they are satellite based. I was also thinking about an EPIRB, which is usually radio-based, but the thing is, for any of those options to work, you've gotta already have it on you when you experience the emergency (or fall, or whatever). Which is why the Life Alert style systems make so much sense.

I really think a Life Alert style system is the way I'd go. It looks like they have landline and wireless options, and the pendant/necklace is the kind of thing you can always have on you, which is the whole point.
posted by xedrik at 3:53 PM on September 26

This is making you and her worried, quite reasonably. Call the Fire Dept.Non-emergency number. They may keep track of individuals at greater risk and be willing to check on her. If you are unable to reach her and are worried, you can call them and also the Red Cross, who typically manage that task in emergencies.
posted by theora55 at 6:33 PM on September 26 [1 favorite]

You might want to research Personal Emergency Response Systems.
posted by BlueHorse at 7:12 PM on September 26 [3 favorites]

I have not used this myself, but have heard that a Ham Radio is a good thing to have in the event of cell service going down--Not sure of what all you need but a quick search seems to show some relatively low-cost options. I will say that when we had several-day-long power outages during the fires here in California, the cell towers lost power quickly and folks with "land line" service discovered that it wasn't fully hard-wired--instead it relied on VOIP at some point down the line, so it also failed.
posted by agatha_magatha at 9:25 AM on September 27

My Ham license lapsed about the time I went to college in 1972, but I am pretty sure it is illegal to transmit on Ham frequencies without a license (unless that has changed). And even ignoring the legalities, I think inexperienced transmission on Ham frequencies during a disaster would be detrimental to other Ham operators trying to help maintain communications during said disaster. Like I said, I have been out of this for decades, just a cautionary note.
posted by forthright at 11:27 AM on September 27

In general after common sense things have been completed ( have a disaster plan, have a power charger, having a cell phone and a burner back up with a battery that can just call 911, emergency response buttons, or satellite service or whatever feels best to you) the next best thing to do is find someone in the someone in the local area and let them know to check in on your mom regularly. This may be a next door neighbor or someone from the religious community or the apartment building manager or a great grandkid in the area. Maybe it is a person who come helps with chores a few days a week.

People absolutely every day end up on situations in which something happens and mobility or health conditions they are unable to reach a phone to inform someone of what is going on. There isn't a one fits all solution. Depending on health conditions it also may be time to think about more structured living like an assisted living where some of the check is are part of the costs.
posted by AlexiaSky at 3:45 PM on September 27

Western NC. Have you heard from her?
posted by theora55 at 6:35 PM on September 28 [2 favorites]