I was talking with a friend at church who works as a 911 operator. I asked her what it means when my phone says “emergency calls only”. Apparently, if there is signal from a tower that is not part of your cell provider’s network, you can still call 911 as all phone companies are required to send all emergency calls to the nearest center. She then described some of the technology that they have available, such as RapidSoS, which is able to gather data on your phone’s GPS signal and provide your real time location to emergency responders. So, for example, last summer I was hiking with a friend in New Mexico. He had intermittent service, but forgot to bring a charging cable and his battery died. I had no service, but the ability to charge my phone. Theoretically, if we needed to call 911, my phone should have been able to connect with his company’s signal, even though I didn’t have regular signal. In addition, if the signal was extremely weak, emergency services could have possibly gotten enough to detect an emergency and then latch onto my location.
Has anyone here had any experiences where they needed to call 911, didn’t have any regular service, but were still able to get through? My friend said that it is permissible to make test 911 calls to see if it works for you in a particular area, but she recommended calling the police’s non-emergency line first to notify them that you will be making a test call. Otherwise, some agencies’ policies require them to send a response no matter what.
Obviously, this doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be able to call 911 from anywhere- there has to be a cell signal of some type to get through. But, in case of a true emergency, it’s worth attempting to dial 911, even if your phone does not show any signal available.
Also, if you do any international travel, 112 is the emergency number for most other countries.
