911 Question (1 Viewer)

[Nick]

A friend of mine said if I disconnect my home phone (No dial tone when pick it up) I'm still able to call 911 is that true. ?

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

No. If your service is completely turned off and there is no dialtone, you can't call anybody, not even 911. Maybe he's thinking of the fact that you can call 911 from a payphone or from a prepaid cellphone that has run out of paid minutes for free. But those are phones that have/can get dialtone. There is no analagous feature for home phones as far as I know, and to think that you could make a call when there's no dialtone (which is what tells you that you're connected to the phone 'net) just doesn't make any sense to me.

Regards,

Joe

 

[brentl]

As far as I know ANY cell phone will call 911 regardless of whether you pay for service or not, doesn't just work for prepaid.

B rent

 

[Robert_Gaither]

Actually any mobile phone that can get a signal can call 911 in the USA (that's why you can donate a defunct phone to a woman's battered shelter for their usage), you can also dial 112 (international emergency number) as well in USA and most foreign countries.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

This is a funny idea: makes it sounds like your friend thinks you could unplug your phone and drag it into the driveway and dial 911... and it would magically work despite being plugged into the thin air.

 

[Mark Murphy]

What your friend is talking about is what us phone company people refer to as "left in dial tone". Basically, when regular service is disconnected and if the line is an unneeded copper facility (we don't need it for someone else) then only the calling features are removed in software. The only feature left is 911 calling. It also means that if you reconnect service it takes less to time for the order to flow through, no need for an outside tech. In New England its not mandatory but it may be in other states.

 

[Kevin T]

i turned my home phone off and only use a cell phone. i'm still able to get a dial tone. i've tried calling other numbers and all i get an operator message saying something to the effect that "this line is for emergency calls only". so in my experience, yes you can still dial 911 without phone service on your home phone. now, obviously, if you have no dial tone entirely then you cannot call 911. have you turned off your phone service to verify the absence / presence of a dial tone?

kevin t

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Yes, if your normal service has been turned off as for non-payment, but you still have dialtone you can call "911". (You can probably also call 800 numbers and certainly call the phone company's local billing office. )

Yes, cell phones other than prepaid can dial 911 provided they also have dialtone.

No, I didn't list every conceivable way that a phone with an inactive account that still has dialtone can call 911.

I didn't mention all these items because I didn't want to write a book, and because the original question had nothing to do with any of them. The friend asserted that a landline with no dialtone could still magically dial 911. As Vince noted, the answer is "No."

Regards,

Joe

 

[Kyle McKnight]

I've yet to have a cell phone that has a dial tone

 

[DaveNel]

When home phone service is shut of for any reason. It will state that the line can be used for emergency calls for a set amount of time. sometimes for 30 days.. some stay on for longer. But if a number has been dropped, You can still use it for 911 emergencies and in some cases to call the phone company to discuss the bill. But usually if you dont make contact with them they will disconnect the service completely after usually 30 days..

 

[Nick]

Well, He wants to substitude his Home phone with VOIP service but that company can't transfer his home phone to his new VOIP they gave him the number of the next town he lives in and if he calls 911 It will show up on different town. (But I know certain VOIP let you manually enter your home address on your account under their website) But bottom line is he just want to keep his existing phone number. The laday on the other line said even if his home phone is disconnected he still can make 911 call.
I don't have a disconnected line to try it to proove if she's right and I don't want to get in trouble calling 911 just to try it out.

 

[Leila Dougan]

As has already been said, this is not a hard and fast rule. It varies from place to place and I'm sure the local phone company has it's own policy.

Where I live, Qwest does no such thing. When I moved out of my apartment last year, the phone was dead on the day I told them to transfer service. The house I was moving into also had a dead line until the transfer was complete -- eventhough the previous owners had just transfered their service the day before.

No dialtone = no 911

So clearly it's up to the local companies and legislation on whether the line has to remain "hot" for a period of time after being disconnected.

 

[MarkHastings]

Forgive my ignorance on phone technology, but what about the phone number? Once you disconnect service, what happens to the phone number?

In other words, if your phone number was (for example) 123-4567 and (after you had it disconnected), they gave that number to someone else, would you still get a dial tone on the phone? Wouldn't your phone no longer have an associated #? or can phones recieve dial tones without a phone number associated with it.

Again, forgive my ignorance, but I don't know if phone service and phone numbers have to work together to function.

 

[Nick]

Correct me if I'm wrong. After you disconnect your phone line they will freeze that number for at least 6 months before they can assign that number to someone else. I used to move to couple different town 5 years ago and when I try to call the number I would get a message telling me that the phone number is not in service. I used to get a lot of call on my old phone number which I believe was once belong to certain company (That annoyed the heck out of me).

Each phone company might have their own policy on how to handle these things I guess.

 

[chris_everett]

Once your # is gone, you 911 dial access is gone too. Just confirmed that with the Manager of a 911 dispatch center. As long as you have dial-tone, you still have your number. Cell phones are different as they are identified by SID #'s instead of a physical line.

 

[Mark Murphy]

Technically, the most important thing to have is a cable pair facility and that pair built into the switch at the central office. Most pairs have phone numbers associated with them but its not a requirement. In almost all cases, you really would need an actual phone number to have dial tone. I'm reaching back to my local telephone test days, but I'm pretty sure I'm correct.