[Rockjock]

I have been reading a post about 911 not working on wind in the home zone IF you venture into a dead spot. This happened once before 9 months back and there was no official answer to whether or not it was a fluke.

http://www.windmobile.ca/community/ideas/detail/38058/#Comments

I also saw today that the OP did a follow up and it indeed is an issue but wind saw fit to delete the follow up.

My understanding is if one is in a home zone and then you move into say another room or down the street and fall into a dead spot wind will disable roaming on the handset. So it will not roam on rogers because they have disabled that and therefore no network connection. So no 911. I called wind to ask about this, I have a co-worker that became alarmed when she read this. After quite a long wait it was told to me that all you have to do is shut the phone off, pull the battery, pull the sim, wait 30-60 seconds ( I did not understand that part ) then power up the phone and then dial 911.

There was a long pause on my end. That is the answer I was given.

Needless to say I gave my co-worker a old Motorola v600 to keep just in case.

Now I have not tried tis myself BUT I was able to find a post from 9 months back where this happened before but there was no announcement if it was a fluke or just a glitch.

Thoughts?

 

[17671]

um even if you can not roam onto the other carrier in your "dead spot", 911 should work anyways. it does not rely on roaming, nor does it care, it finds any signal to use, providing the band/technology and the call will go through. i made pleanty of 911 calls using my rogers phone on telus 3G network, ok not pleanty ,but atleast one up north where telus had a tower, and my rogers phone had no service.

 

[Rockjock]

Paolo I would normally agree with you BUT since the handset is being barred from roaming on ANY carrier it can not dial the 911. Remember you are in a home zone, roaming is disabled so in effect it is not allowing the handset to use any network. I just got an e-mail from someone on wind telling me indeed the 911 is not working under those circumstances.

 

[TorontoColin]

911 calling in this case cannot be limited by Wind. If it's not working it is a problem with the handset or possibly with the roaming network (likely Rogers).

Wind cannot block this service through roaming restrictions, even if they wanted to.

 

[Rockjock]

Colin I have not trried it myself but thus far 2 e-mails confirming. 1 was with a 9700 the other an x10i 9 months ago someone reported the same issue.. I believe it was a few people actually. But I can see this as an issue. IF wind blockes you from roaming, getting a signal then I can see it now working. I have not myself tried it but as I said 2 different handsets and the person who posted this even called wind and had it confirmed. That being said how reliable is winds tech service anyways. I will see for myself tommorow will give it a go with a blokes handset in the office.

 

[TorontoColin]

All handsets must connect to 911 in order to be approved for sale in Canada. It's not a Wind thing, it's a hardware thing. They can't block it from their end the way they can with roaming. If it fails it's either a handset issue or a network issue with the emergency network.

 

[BGY11]

I wouldn't recommend calling 911 to "test" this as you are indicating you want to do.

To clarify, the phone would connect to whatever tower it could if a user called 911. Whether you are a provider of that network or not, it is mandatory for 911 calls to be connected. You shouldn't even need a SIM card to dial 911 (which would support the fact Wind couldn't block it if you weren't on their network).

If it were discovered that Wind (or a roaming partner) was blocking 911, there would be huge fines (or at the very least, some media attention). The fact we haven't heard of many other reports since that original post 9 months ago leads me to think it's either not true, or there's more to the original story than first stated.

 

[17671]

you should not be testing it. but you should have a good example, and give it to Wind, Wind will then dispatch a trouble ticket, and their technicians will book a time slot with the police, and they will tell them they are doing testing in their lab or in the field, and they will have to tweak their network until its fixed.

TorontoColin is correct, 911 is not blocked by wind, it can be a handset problem, even if wind blocks roaming to wind-away in the home zone, a call to 911 will still go through. its mandated by CRTC

 

[17671]

another note, Wind has to test their 911 calls with a roaming partner sim, the same can be said for rogers, bell, etc. they all test their 911 calls with a roaming provider sim too to make sure its routed correctly, they do this to comply, otherwise like BGY11 said, huge fines

 

[Rockjock]

you should not be testing it. but you should have a good example, and give it to Wind, Wind will then dispatch a trouble ticket, and their technicians will book a time slot with the police, and they will tell them they are doing testing in their lab or in the field, and they will have to tweak their network until its fixed.

TorontoColin is correct, 911 is not blocked by wind, it can be a handset problem, even if wind blocks roaming to wind-away in the home zone, a call to 911 will still go through. its mandated by CRTC

Paolo you are psychic! That is what they said they would do. For the record I did meet up with this gal and indeed the 911 did not work. So she called in and was told they would dispatch someone. But here is the rub.. Wind says it is NOT a problem just take out your sim and you are good to go. After I got back to work she did call and say that her friends phone worked just fine and it hit me.. she is on an older sim! but Just 10 mins ago I got another e-mail from someone with a new N8 and new sim same issue. It would seem to be hit or miss. Wind is aware of this, lets see what happens next.

 

[17671]

Ahh interesting, a SIM card issue? who would have thought? I guess it does make perfect sense to always ensure you have the latest SIM and Latest Handset software.

There was a 911 issue with rogers last year, where some of their handsets were freezing when calling 911, due to a "gps" glitch in the firmware.

 

[recneps77]

As echoed by everyone - 911 cannot be blocked by a provider, by law any phone capable of connecting (i.e. compatible frequency) must be given access.

The issue is most likely the device.
Both phones I've had were set to wind home manually.
When there was no signal, it would switch to rogers, but in emergency mode only. (no calls or texts would go in or out, except to 911)

Related note - for any family member who doesn't have/want a cell phone, give them any old one you might have for them to throw in their car/purse/etc in case they need 911.

 

[Rockjock]

As echoed by everyone - 911 cannot be blocked by a provider, by law any phone capable of connecting (i.e. compatible frequency) must be given access.

The issue is most likely the device.
Both phones I've had were set to wind home manually.
When there was no signal, it would switch to rogers, but in emergency mode only. (no calls or texts would go in or out, except to 911)

Related note - for any family member who doesn't have/want a cell phone, give them any old one you might have for them to throw in their car/purse/etc in case they need 911.

So let me understand you all on this.. 911 works even if the networks are disabled? Careful I said disabled.
Can you roam in a home zone ? No, the answer is no.
So IF I am roaming in a home zone,Wind is not present and the roaming network ( Rogers ) is disabled. So how can I dial 911? Winds answer is.. turn off the handset, remove the battery and sim wait 30-60 seconds and then make the call.

When I asked further it was explained that when they bar the roaming network it " can " bar any and all network(s) communication with the network(s)

I am interested how this all will play out.

 

[TorontoColin]

911 calls are exempt from any roaming issues. Wind can't undo this. When a 911 call is placed, the phone is supposed to route the call through the first available network, regardless of roaming regulations.

As an example, Bell HSPA phones are blocked from roaming on the Rogers GSM network in the exact same way that Wind handsets are blocked within Wind Zones. However, a 911 call will still be routed to the first available network, even if it is Rogers.

This is not a feature that Wind can turn off, even if they wanted to. I'm not saying they can't because it's against the rules, I'm saying they literally do not possess the ability to disable 911 roaming calls. The only possible way it could be disabled is if Rogers were to do disable it on their end, and that would result in huge fines for Rogers. The only other possible explanation would be handset failure of some kind.

 

[17671]

Rockjock: This has been the case for as long as I can remember. TorontoColin nailed it on the head perfectly. Believe he, he is 100% correct.

 

[recneps77]

So let me understand you all on this.. 911 works even if the networks are disabled? Careful I said disabled.
Can you roam in a home zone ? No, the answer is no.
So IF I am roaming in a home zone,Wind is not present and the roaming network ( Rogers ) is disabled. So how can I dial 911? Winds answer is.. turn off the handset, remove the battery and sim wait 30-60 seconds and then make the call.

When I asked further it was explained that when they bar the roaming network it " can " bar any and all network(s) communication with the network(s)

I am interested how this all will play out.

That would be a problem with your handset.
911 cannot be blocked. If the call isn't connecting, your phone isn't working properly.
Wind nor rogers have no say in what device can call 911.
Any phone, even un-activated/no sim in it is granted unrestricted access to 911.

"Disabled" just means you cannot make (regular) calls, texts, or use data.

 

[BGY11]

Also, if you are being told by a Wind CSR that you have to remove the SIM card and wait several minutes, get their employee number and then call back and ask for a supervisor. That kind of procedure should not be required for a 911 call, and I don't know why they would tell a customer that to begin with. Depending on the situation, someone may not have the time / capability to go through that procedure (nor should they have to for an emergency 911 call).

 

[Rockjock]

Rockjock: This has been the case for as long as I can remember. TorontoColin nailed it on the head perfectly. Believe he, he is 100% correct.

Well if that is the case I am stumped why this happened. On just 1 handset sure, I can see that but on 3 different ones? Who knows.. I hope it was a fluke.

 

[17671]

what's the point of a roaming agreement with Rogers if they block it? doesn't that defeat the purpose of roaming?

ie: if i want to use my wind phone and im in an area wind does not cover, i would like to be able to roam on a roaming partner, such as rogers, ie. wind away even if there is a premium cost to do such. We're used to the costs, fido did this, so did clearnet. Why would they be blocking it? they know their network is not superb right now, atleast let them roam on another carrier.

when fido had its own network, and rogers turned on gsm, fido phones would go into SOS only when fido signal was lost but rogers signal was present, this means you could call 911, but you could not roam onto the competing network. Thats my understanding, it works like that everywhere in the world, why is wind making this complicated?

 

[TorontoColin]

Wind blocks roaming on the Rogers network within their coverage areas to prevent customers from accidentally running up large roaming bills in what is supposed to be a 'Home Zone'. Outside of coverage areas Wind users can roam on Rogers.