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It's hard to understand how this is Samsung's liability. The device was extremely old (nearly 10 years), and an update was available nonetheless. The user had r

It's hard to understand how this is Samsung's liability. The device was extremely old (nearly 10 years), and an update was available nonetheless. The user had received multiple warnings and notifications that this update needs to be applied for emergency calls to continue working.

stavros 11mo ago
When updating devices that old almost certainly means that they become unusable, I can't fault the person for not updating. I've learned not to apply updates any more, in the spirit of "if it isn't broken, don't fix it".
- deleted 11mo ago
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Sat_P 11mo ago
If a phone functions properly with a SIM card (i.e gets good signal/reception), then in my opinion the user should be able to call emergency services.
- MoonWalk 11mo ago
  Exactly. I'm mystified as to why this is not addressed anywhere in the article. Did the phone work to make phone calls or not? If yes, then a user should not be expected to guess that he can't call emergency services. And WHY could he not call emergency services if the phone worked for other calls? Shoddy reporting and, it sounds like, a shoddy system.
  - pfych 11mo ago
    Australia shut down its entire 3G network, which a lot of devices used for emergency calls. A lot of phones worked with 4G still but did not support using 4G for emergency calls. The telco's solution was to sell new phones to people, which a lot of people didn't do. Apparently all of these phones that still worked were flagged and blocked from using 4G but this apparently wasn't the case.
    - MoonWalk 11mo ago
      "A lot of phones worked with 4G still but did not support using 4G for emergency calls." Now that should be illegal. It's absurd to think that everyone whose phone works just fine for regular calls is going to receive, understand, and heed upgrade messages. That's hugely irresponsible. Furthermore, it looks like these customers may NOT have received any such messages: If the phone company could identify a user's phone as being out of date and send it an update warning, then that company could have banished it from its network. I see no excuse for what happened here.
interestica 11mo ago
We have all lost functionality of a device we paid for after an update. You can’t fault a user for avoiding it. It’s the root that should be addressed.
bryanlarsen 11mo ago
The quote is from the CEO of TPG, not Samsung. TPG was required to block any phones that couldn't place 000 calls. TPG claims to have done that, yet the phone wasn't blocked. If they didn't, they would seem to be very definitely liable.

stavros 11mo ago

When updating devices that old almost certainly means that they become unusable, I can't fault the person for not updating. I've learned not to apply updates any more, in the spirit of "if it isn't broken, don't fix it".

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

Sat_P 11mo ago

If a phone functions properly with a SIM card (i.e gets good signal/reception), then in my opinion the user should be able to call emergency services.

MoonWalk 11mo ago
Exactly. I'm mystified as to why this is not addressed anywhere in the article. Did the phone work to make phone calls or not? If yes, then a user should not be expected to guess that he can't call emergency services. And WHY could he not call emergency services if the phone worked for other calls? Shoddy reporting and, it sounds like, a shoddy system.
- pfych 11mo ago
  Australia shut down its entire 3G network, which a lot of devices used for emergency calls. A lot of phones worked with 4G still but did not support using 4G for emergency calls. The telco's solution was to sell new phones to people, which a lot of people didn't do. Apparently all of these phones that still worked were flagged and blocked from using 4G but this apparently wasn't the case.
  - MoonWalk 11mo ago
    "A lot of phones worked with 4G still but did not support using 4G for emergency calls." Now that should be illegal. It's absurd to think that everyone whose phone works just fine for regular calls is going to receive, understand, and heed upgrade messages. That's hugely irresponsible. Furthermore, it looks like these customers may NOT have received any such messages: If the phone company could identify a user's phone as being out of date and send it an update warning, then that company could have banished it from its network. I see no excuse for what happened here.

interestica 11mo ago

We have all lost functionality of a device we paid for after an update. You can’t fault a user for avoiding it. It’s the root that should be addressed.

bryanlarsen 11mo ago

The quote is from the CEO of TPG, not Samsung. TPG was required to block any phones that couldn't place 000 calls. TPG claims to have done that, yet the phone wasn't blocked. If they didn't, they would seem to be very definitely liable.