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Comment by RIMR | Hacker News Reader

Modern cell phones don't even dial the number. They just record that you dialed an emergency number, and route an emergency call.

Tried dialing 112 once just to see what would happen, and it immediately connected me to 911. Interesting conversation with the dispatcher when I told them that I had not, in fact, dialed 911.

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Also of note (most people know this, but might be worth sharing anyways) I believe emergency calls get special handling by the network, and can go over any tower, not just your carriers'. So if you're somewhere with no reception and you have an emergency, try making the call anyways - it might still go through. This is presumably why cellphones differentiate "Emergency Calls Only" from having no service entirely.

That is correct. You don't even need a SIM card to place an emergency call.

I use an old thrift store flip phone to make 911 calls when I would prefer to stay anonymous. 911 can even call you back using the IMEI!

It's not well known but I believe all of 911(us), 112(eu), 000(au) will work in all of the above countries. And others, almost certainly.

At least 112 and 911 are standardised in GSM. https://www.gsma.com/newsroom/wp-content/uploads//NG.119-v1....

112 is an emergency number "by specification", it will always work (on GSM/UMTS/Vo LTE networks, NOT on landlines)), no matter what country you're in. I think this also applies to 911, although I'm not 100% sure about this.

Numbers like 000 are a different matter, there are scenarios in which they might not work even if you're in Australia (when you have a non-australian SIM or no SIM at all, for example).

For more about this, see e.g.

https://nickvsnetworking.com/tales-from-the-trenches-emergen...

AFAIR, 112 is defined by some ITU or 3GPP standard, which is honored in at least Europe/Russia region. In other places different numbers might as well be routed to it or (even better) redefined inside terminal software (SIM). But I no longer work in that area, so can't be 100% sure.

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