Emergency call handling tends to expose edge cases that normal calls never hit. Would be interesting to know if this affects only certain models or firmware branches.
Indeed. It now has been revealed even telcos were not doing real world tests https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-08/surprise-drill-for-te... and new laws were passed this month that they must make it possible for an independent university to do testing https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2025-10/acma-strengthens-in...
An emergency call can connect using any tower that is compatible with the caller's hardware -- with or without service provisioned, and with or without any sort of SIM.
Need help, and find a dusty phone somewhere? Turn it on, call emergency services using 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3 [*], and if there's any cell service within range that it is physically capable of chatting with then the call will go through.
It will kick other users off if that's necessary in order to allow the emergency call to happen.
There's nothing to bill, so there's no billing systems (or even billing logic) to get in the way either.
It's intended to always work.
It forces it through
In my country, at least on my Samsung Galaxy mobile device, they are sending Flash Messages for ads, even though I requested to be removed from their lists (and they complied... with calls and SMS).
I already see them making use of this for ads until a big group of people complain.
I'm tired, boss.
What does receiving "Flash Messages for ads" have to do with placing emergency calls to 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3?
Upthread someone else says the base station will drop other users if it needs capacity for an emergency call. That sounds like an exploit for griefers...
Even if it means kicking someone off that is using another carrier.
It cuts through the multi-colored tape and just makes the call happen.
It won't magically produce good service where there is none at all. It doesn't pre-empt physics. It's not even a turbo-boost button.
But by being both largely carrier-agnostic and pre-emptive of other services, emergency calls can use whatever bandwidth might be floating around: Your own service might be such shit in a place that you'll never be able to make a regular call there, while an emergency call may find a better tower and work anyway.
So if have have a tiny bit of signal it determines the quality of the call will be too bad and doesn’t connect a regular call. With emergency calls it does.
And an unworkable call to 911 that at least connects is better than one that does not.
In the first case, it's possible that a 911 PSAP operator might get a hint that help is needed by someone -- somewhere. It may even be good enough to get a vague idea of where the person is, and which phone it is that is calling.
And that may not sound like much, but it's way, way better than in the latter case, wherein: It is certain that the PSAP will know nothing at all.
(Some data is better than no data.)
I worked at a telco for 4 years. I didn’t work on 911 directly, just some billing/address stuff related to it.
It was VERY important