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My experience sitting in on 112 dispatchers as part of my EMS training was different. Multiple times per shift a caller would just start the conversation with s

by d12bb 4y ago

My experience sitting in on 112 dispatchers as part of my EMS training was different. Multiple times per shift a caller would just start the conversation with something like “This is no emergency, I'm an employee of Vodafone/T-Mobile/etc and have to test 112”. Only network operators calling this way though, no phone manufacturers.

AstralStorm 4y ago
Normally phone manufacturers certify that this works against an operator test suite on simulator hardware, I believe. Cannot have FCC etc. uncertified phone connect to normal networks - that would be a mess.
- Scoundreller 4y ago
  Happens all the time with roaming and imported devices. I’m not aware of any western provider saying “oh, that block of IMEIs aren’t allowed to connect to the network”. Canadian government shadow-banned sales of a bunch of Xiaomi cell phones, but local providers have no issues authing them onto the network. Can’t say no to that juicy roaming revenue even if it means putting your network at risk. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28620359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28620359
  - toast0 4y ago
    US networks get cagey about certain phones. CDMA carriers were always restricive, but now that 2g and 3g are mostly shut down, they don't want to allow registration of LTE devices that don't do Voice over LTE with their network because it breaks the emergency service rules. I don't think they'd block them from roaming if the device has a foreign network sim that's authorized to roam though. Of course, major US carriers basically don't allow their subscribers to roam to other major carriers.
toast0 4y ago
Phone manufacturers probably do use simulators for most of their test calls, but also nearly every emergency dispatch center will have several cell towers in their service area and very few have phone manufacturers or phone test facilities. I have a friend who used to work on cell towers and he'd need to do a test call after certain types of maintenance, and might visit a few towers a day to do that work. On the other hand, a particular phone model probably only needs one or two live test calls per firmware release, so there's probably a lot fewer of those calls overall, even if you're at a dispatch center that serves an area including people testing phones.

by d12bb 4y ago

AstralStorm 4y ago

Normally phone manufacturers certify that this works against an operator test suite on simulator hardware, I believe. Cannot have FCC etc. uncertified phone connect to normal networks - that would be a mess.

Scoundreller 4y ago
Happens all the time with roaming and imported devices. I’m not aware of any western provider saying “oh, that block of IMEIs aren’t allowed to connect to the network”. Canadian government shadow-banned sales of a bunch of Xiaomi cell phones, but local providers have no issues authing them onto the network. Can’t say no to that juicy roaming revenue even if it means putting your network at risk. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28620359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28620359
- toast0 4y ago
  US networks get cagey about certain phones. CDMA carriers were always restricive, but now that 2g and 3g are mostly shut down, they don't want to allow registration of LTE devices that don't do Voice over LTE with their network because it breaks the emergency service rules. I don't think they'd block them from roaming if the device has a foreign network sim that's authorized to roam though. Of course, major US carriers basically don't allow their subscribers to roam to other major carriers.

toast0 4y ago

Phone manufacturers probably do use simulators for most of their test calls, but also nearly every emergency dispatch center will have several cell towers in their service area and very few have phone manufacturers or phone test facilities. I have a friend who used to work on cell towers and he'd need to do a test call after certain types of maintenance, and might visit a few towers a day to do that work. On the other hand, a particular phone model probably only needs one or two live test calls per firmware release, so there's probably a lot fewer of those calls overall, even if you're at a dispatch center that serves an area including people testing phones.