Using 112 on your mobile in emergencies

[rik_uk3]

Back in 91 when mobile phones were bigger than a house brick I went to the CeBit exhibition in Hanover and remember looking in disbelief at the phones from Ericsson and Motorola that were on display which were tiny compared to the norm of the time. Its a fantastic exhibition and well worth a visit, I intend going again in 2015; you will see stuff there that won't be on the high street shelves for a year or two

 

[Joonsy]

Good vid to watch if you're heading into the hills ....

[video=youtube;XPZv_8dABfU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded& v=XPZv_8dABfU[/video]

excellent really useful information, never heard of this before so thankyou for posting this.

 

[Rod Paradise]

I'll never give up my landline, has its own power so will often work in power outages. I can use my mobile indoors but like using a 'real' phone to be honest. I've got Android and Windows phones now but use about twenty minutes a month in calls, maybe send five text messages and download maybe 200mb of data so you could argue I'm wasting money but as said, I like gizmo's lol Waiting to get a Microsoft Surface Pro, again, don't need one but just want one and at my age sod it, treat yourself to a bit of what you fancy

Not quite right, your home phone may need plugged in, but that's for remembering numbers, hands free etc. The actual phone part gets its power from the line and doesn't have its own, and the exchange has a mains, battery & generator backup supply which is why the phone usually works during power outages. As an aside power outages are initially pinpointed by the sudden burst of calls, which are tagged geographically & alert the power company to where there's a problem. (Edit - rearead your post and now think you meant the phone system had it's own supply not the phone - which is right - so sorry for misraeding).

I totally agree on the gizmos.

Re 112 video there's nothing special in place in the UK that's not already there for 999, the addition of 112 was an OFCOM directive a few years back. He's got some of what happens kind of right (like trunk reservation for emergency calls in congestion situations), and some wrong (there isn't more bandwidth for text than voice).

 

[shortymcsteve]

Santaman - "The GSM mobile phone standard designates 112 as an emergency number, so it will work on GSM phones even in North America where GSM systems redirect emergency calls to 911, or Australia where emergency calls are redirected to 000."

If you called it in the US, it would just redirect you to 911. So it does work but it's really just redirecting. You might as well put in 911.

 

[rik_uk3]

Not quite right, your home phone may need plugged in, but that's for remembering numbers, hands free etc. The actual phone part gets its power from the line and doesn't have its own, and the exchange has a mains, battery & generator backup supply which is why the phone usually works during power outages. As an aside power outages are initially pinpointed by the sudden burst of calls, which are tagged geographically & alert the power company to where there's a problem. (Edit - rearead your post and now think you meant the phone system had it's own supply not the phone - which is right - so sorry for misraeding).

I totally agree on the gizmos.

Re 112 video there's nothing special in place in the UK that's not already there for 999, the addition of 112 was an OFCOM directive a few years back. He's got some of what happens kind of right (like trunk reservation for emergency calls in congestion situations), and some wrong (there isn't more bandwidth for text than voice).

Which is what I meant, I must work harder at being more succinct in my posts whilst keeping them down to a readable length. I have DECT phones but always have a bog standard, no frills telephone plugged in too.