ITU To Choose Emergency Line For Mobiles: 911, or 112? 354
First time accepted submitter maijc writes "The International Telecommunication Union will determine the standard emergency phone numbers for new generations of mobile phones and other devices. AP reports that member states have agreed that either 911 or 112 should be designated as emergency phone numbers. 911 is currently used in North America, while 112 is standard across the EU and in many other countries worldwide."
Re:Prior use (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact... if you make 911 the emergency number in Spain we won't be able to dial to the 10% of fixed lines in Madrid in Spain.
91xxxxxxx is how all home lines in Madrid province begin with.
Re:Prior use (Score:5, Interesting)
the GSM spec contains a special call type 'emergency' which is meant to be triggered when you press that, or dial 112 or 999 (or presumably 911) so the digits really don't matter to the network. The idea was that those calls could kick someone else off the network if it was congested, for an emergency. I don't believe it was ever implemented though.
It was implemented. In the UK at least if you call an emergency number when you have a weak signal it will dramatically improve for the duration of the call as the cell tower reconfigures itself to use up to its maximum power and, as you say, drops any other call that was interfering with the call placed by your handset.
The towers are smart enough not to drop any calls or boost the power unless it will help.