For some reason, this popped in to my head last night. I was on a speed awareness course a while ago and the instructor was telling us calling 112 from a mobile is better than 999 as it allowed the emergency services to locate you, it gets through even where there isn’t a signal and I’m sure some other stuff too.

Now, my bullshitometer was tingling throughout, but not having the facts at my disposal I kept schtum. So, is it indeed bollocks? Is 112 any ‘better’ than 999?

It’s rubbish.

Probably a combination of him explaining it badly and you not listening and/or not remembering.

AFAIK both calls use whatever network they’ve a signal with, but if you’ve no signal on any network, you’ve no signal…

Yeah discussed here previously (can’t be arsed finding the thread).

Utter nonsense – they are equivalent.

Is that the case? Plenty of phones say ’emergency calls only’ when you have no signal.

Thought they were exactly the same, the main advantage of 112 is that it’s a Europe-wide emergency number.

Sort of right

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/112_(emergency_telephone_number)

E112 is a location-enhanced version of 112. The telecom operator transmits the location information to the emergency centre. The EU Directive E112 (2003) requires mobile phone networks to provide emergency services with whatever information they have about the location a mobile call was made. This directive is based on the FCC’s Enhanced 911 ruling in 2001.
The new eCall project for automated emergency calls from cars is based on E1000.

Having sat in with our control girls on a shift, they do get location and number of a mobile and landline even if you hide the number.

Thought they were exactly the same, the main advantage of 112 is that it’s a Europe-wide emergency number.

I thought it was just a common emergency number adopted across the EU so you did not need to remember each member states version of ‘999’.

There have definitely been enough urban legends and BS spam emails about 112 over the years. Despite their training police officers can be just as gullible as the rest of us when stories involve technology that they don’t fully understand.

Is that the case? Plenty of phones say ’emergency calls only’ when you have no signal.

You don’t have a signal to your provider but your phone is able to get a signal from another company. If there really is no signal, you can’t call anyone.

Probably a combination of him explaining it badly and you not listening and/or not remembering.

Honestly, maybe the former but not the latter. He was even talking about the emergency services being able to ‘use GPS’ to find you if you used 112, but not 999. Which is nonsense.

He wasn’t a copper BTW, he was a civvie (driving) instructor.

999 uses the same Bruneep hence why we get calls saying “in the general area of” and the get more info as we travel.

having sat next to the girls when calls come in and seeing they system zoom into the callers location its quite impressive. Saying that they do sometimes get mis routed calls from BT exchanges.

It’s pretty clever system that’s for sure.

You don’t have a signal to your provider but your phone is able to get a signal from another company. If there really is no signal, you can’t call anyone.

It used to be the case that you didn’t even need a sim card fitted to make an emergency call.

But you still can’t magic mobile signal out of nowhere no matter what number you call.

Isn’t the emergency calls only when you don’t have a sim inserted? Your phone can still have a signal but not a nework….

Isn’t the emergency calls only when you don’t have a sim inserted? Your phone can still have a signal but not a nework….

According to Wikipedia you can’t call 999 without a sim, due to the large number of hoax calls that were made.