Strange socket...

[plugwash]

I believe it's broadcast depending what country you're in what the emergency numbers are. You can also call emergency numbers without a SIM card, so even if you don't have a signal on the network you subscribe to, you should try dialling anyway, as you can get emergency through another network even if it's not on your SIM card. When I was in Germany 999 refused to unlock my phone, though it does unlock it here in Britain.

hmm
im sure i had an old phone (nokia 3110 iirc) which only unlocked on 112 and not 999

 

[ZenStalinist]

Maybe... Not all phones unlock on emergency numbers, and it may not have been programmed to receive the listing of emergency numbers, just to unlock on 112, but most 'phones nowadays receive a listing of emergency numbers to unlock on.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I believe it's broadcast depending what country you're in what the emergency numbers are.

How does it know where you are?

All it knows is which cell you're in, and it is a known fact that if you live in the Dover area, and have got roaming enabled on your phone, that you need to keep an eye on what service you are using, as it is reasonably common to be picked up by a French network. The normal implications of this are (only) inflated bills, but if you'd called the emergency services and got routed to a French response centre the implications could be a lot worse. This has already happened in North America - mobile users close to the USA/Canada border can easily be in a cell from the other country, and 911 calls have been sent to the wrong place.

 

[plugwash]

if you are making an emergency call on a french cell from britan you have worse things to worry about than whether your phone unlocks on 999

if you did 112 from a cellphone in britan and ended up calling a french respose centre i expect (hope) they would just transfer you to a british one when you said you were in dover

 

[pipme]

Perhaps Napolean picked up the wrong smoke signal then ?

 

[ZenStalinist]

if you are making an emergency call on a french cell from britan you have worse things to worry about than whether your phone unlocks on 999

if you did 112 from a cellphone in britan and ended up calling a french respose centre i expect (hope) they would just transfer you to a british one when you said you were in dover

And it is for this reason you can manually lock most 'phones to a network, and it will try the cell you are locked to first.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

if you did 112 from a cellphone in britan and ended up calling a french respose centre i expect (hope) they would just transfer you to a british one when you said you were in dover

Let's hope that the minute or so confusion due to language difficulties and them working out what's going on and transferring you are not crucial.

Bottom line - if you live near the south coast and you've had roaming enabled, disable automatic network selection on your phone.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

How the hell did we get from a question about a socket high up on the wall to a discussion of cross-border emergency calls on mobile phones?

I think you lot are all on drugs.

 

[TexMex]

BAS. What have drugs got to do with it, I think you're going a bit off thread

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Well I don't see how you can possibly make a Caesar Salad dressing without anchovies....

 

[securespark]

It was all Tex's fault - he started it, Miss.

Anyway, what about that really awful advert for BM??