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Worry Over VZW, Sprint Phones' 911 Alarm
[TheBORG] writes "An Austin woman who dialed 911 recently discovered what she said could be a fatal flaw in some new cell phones. She called for help when she arrived at some vacant property she owns in east Austin and found her security chain gone. She grabbed her new Verizon Wireless Casio G'zOne phone, which to her horror made an audible alarm when she called 911. Fearing vandals were still on the property, she hung up and hid, then put her hand over the earpiece and dialed again to muffle the sounds. A Verizon Wireless spokesperson says it's mandatory according to Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act. The FCC says Section 255 of the Telecommunications Code requires that phones let a caller know a 911 call is underway, but does not require an audible alarm. This thread on Howardforums.com mentions that the alarm is present on new Sprint phones too."
112 is the GSM emergency number. The GSM standard mandates that it should work no matter where you take your GSM phone.
It happens to also be European wide emergency number for all lines, landline and mobile, (though many member states have their own number, and have implemented 112 as an alias - for example, in the UK 999 is considered the emergency number; but that's not relevant here. The context is mobile phones, and 112 is the GSM mobile emergency number. It works in Europe, it works in Korea, it works in Australia, it works in the US - on GSM networks.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Unfortunately it would be criminal to remove it, thanks to Congress.
Now the article says the FCC doesn't require a loud tone, which is technically true. Unfortunately the Telecommunications Act DOES require a loud noise of some type, so that blind people are aware that they've dialed 911.
This is a mandated "accessibility" feature. The FCC says they're free to remove the "alarm" but at best they could replace it with a loud voice announcing "you're calling 911!" which I don't think would help.
In this case Congress deserves the blame for passing a law without thinking of the consequences. They demanded that all phones make it clear to blind people that they had dialed 911, and the only way to do that on phones without a Braille interface is a loud noise of some form. No matter what the FCC says about the alarm not being "required," some form of loud noise IS required.