Why Samsung Phones Are Failing Emergency Calls in Australia
hackaday.comSome more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45981608
on a side related issue , there was much criticism of the 3g shutdown in Australia. including lack of preparation - google words - criticism of 3g shutdown in Australia
I’m curious whether this is an RRC/IMS stack issue on Samsung’s implementation or something carrier-side in Australia’s 000 routing setup.
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.
> Emergency call handling tends to expose edge cases that normal calls never hit.
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...
What's the difference with emergency calls? (I know nothing of this.)
I don't know how it is with VoLTE and other recent things (it may be the same; it may be different), but at one time in cellular world: Emergency calls differed from other calls in that they Must Always Work.
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.
I'm scared of this.
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.
Huh?
What does receiving "Flash Messages for ads" have to do with placing emergency calls to 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3?
Namely the fact that emergency calls can be routed through other networks that aren’t your own (in fact, you can place an emergency call without a SIM).
You can also make emergency calls when you don’t have enough signal for regular calls.
It forces it through
What is "forces it through" in the technical sense? Will the handset boost the sending? Will the base antenna boost its listening capabilities (sensitivity)?
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...
Routing an emergency call will use capacity wherever it can, even if it isn't capacity that belongs to your carrier.
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.
My understanding is that it also ignores quality of service limits.
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.
Perhaps so. The trend is definitely for emergency calls to be handled very rudimentarily.
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.)
Correct.
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
Nobody should have a Samsung phone now or in the future due to the mandatory, total, and permanent Samsung boycott over putting ads on their damned refrigerators.